AAP Wed 8/1/03
Plane threat Briton to appeal
By Suzanne Klotz
January 08, 2003
A BRITISH tourist who became the first person in Australia to be jailed for making threats aboard a plane is appealing his prison sentence.
Thomas John Lilico, 22, was jailed for three months, suspended after one month, and placed on a 12-month, $300 good behaviour bond, by the Cairns Magistrates Court, in far north Queensland on January 2 this year.
Lilico had pleaded guilty to making a threatening or false statement which threatened or endangered plane and passenger safety aboard a Qantas flight about to take-off from Cairns on New Year's Day.
Both the commonwealth prosecution and the defence had submitted a fine would be appropriate, but Magistrate Ken Lynn said an example needed to be made of such conduct in the current world climate.
Although Lilico admitted telling a flight attendant he had a knife and intended to take over the plane, he also said he had no memory of doing so because he was heavily intoxicated.
District Court Judge Michael Noud will hear the appeal by phone hook-up between Cairns and Brisbane later today.
Judge Noud said he would be examining several issues including the basis on which Lilico was sentenced and the weight which should be given to his otherwise good character.
AAP