ADC says
Well, here is a professional Police Officer, having taken account of the evidence reported to him , the interviews carried out of passengers and crew, and reports of evidence found on the aircraft by his officers.
Maybe MOL and his fellow apologists for drunken yobs endangering aircraft will now shut up.
Well, if we were to follow your reasoning, there would be no need for a judicial system, and culprits could be locked up on the say-so of a suitably professional policeman.
I doubt that the likes of Paul Burrell would share your high regard for police professionalism, and I suspect that Celtic fans may be less than enamoured with policemen after their run-ins with the police in Spain which are going to be the subject of a club complaint and were also sufficiently serious for the BBC commentator at the game to pen an article in the Scottish press.
Still, the policeman in this instance says that “Nothing has come to my attention to scale down this incident, indeed the opposite is true.”
Now I don't know what the cabin crew have said to the police.
But what the airline has said is this.
"A number of passengers at the rear of the aircraft objected strongly and loudly, one female passenger becoming particularly agitated. At least ten other passengers became involved, and in the ensuing fracas the cabin crew member was struck on the arm."
Now that suggests to me that quite a fracas took place on this plane. I assume we can all agree on that.
And one Scottish newspaper reports that 'the sudden diversion to Cardiff came after a stewardess called the pilot in the cockpit claiming: "Some of the passengers have gone berserk. I have lost the cabin."
Again that seems pretty serious.
So can we all agree then that so far this sounds like a major incident in what is a very confined space. The airline remember says the passengers involved 'objected strongly and loudly.'
Well that seems like that then.
Except that there's only one thing that nags with me and it's contained in the airline's statement which says -
"It has become apparent from our debriefing of cabin crew that passengers in the forward and centre of the cabin may not have been aware of the second disturbance."
Well that might be so but this second disturbance was the one where, in the words of the airline -
"A number of passengers at the rear of the aircraft objected strongly and loudly, one female passenger becoming particularly agitated. At least ten other passengers became involved, and in the ensuing fracas the cabin crew member was struck on the arm."
And yet the airline can say that passengers in the middle and front parts of the aircraft may not have been aware of what was going on. I just find that part hard to understand, and I can only think that either this was rather a subdued fracas or else the rest of the passengers were stone deaf.