Ryanair racist may get away with calling elderly woman 'ugly black bastard' on flight, MP says

‘Ryanair’s failure to deplane the alleged racist ... probably means that he is not now prosecuted,’ said Karl Turner

A Ryanair passenger who racially abused an elderly woman sitting next to him on a plane may “get away with it”, a shadow transport minister said.

The man was filmed calling the 77-year-old victim an “ugly black bastard” and shouting “don’t talk to me in a foreign language you stupid ugly cow”.

Customers threatened to boycott the airline after its staff failed to remove him from the flight from Barcelona to London Stansted – leaving the elderly woman to move seats instead.

Labour MP Karl Turner, a qualified barrister who was once Labour’s shadow attorney general, said Ryanair had “failed spectacularly”.

“Suspect the pressure to turn this aircraft around quickly and get it airborne meant that they have allowed this alleged offender to remain on the aircraft,” said Mr Turner. “He may now get away with it.”

“Ryanair failure to deplane the alleged racist offender, handing him over to the Spanish authorities, probably means that he isn’t now prosecuted.

“Unfortunately because Ryanair is registered in Dublin not in the UK the alleged offence could only be tried by UK authorities if it was ‘in flight’ to the UK. Section 92(1) Civil Aviation Act s.92(4) defines ‘in flight’.

“If this incident had have happened on an alternative airline under ‘British Control’ or it was already ‘in flight’ to the UK the prosecuting authorities could have prosecuted.”

The footage, which has been viewed nearly 3 million times, was recorded on board flight FR015 on Friday 19 October by Kent resident David Lawrence, who uploaded it to social media.

It shows the man shouting at the woman to move seats while her daughter tries to tell him her mother is disabled.

He replies: “I don’t care whether she’s f****** disabled or not – if I tell her to get out she gets out.”

The man then calls the elderly woman “an ugly f****** c***” and tells staff to move the woman to another seat, adding: “If you don’t go to another seat I’ll push you to another seat.”

Staff can be heard telling him “don’t be so rude, you have to calm down” while other passengers call for the man to be thrown off the flight.

The victim, who came to the UK from Jamaica in the 1960s as part of the Windrush generation, can be heard telling the man he stinks and needs a wash.

She then asked to be moved so she could sit next to her daughter.

Her daughter, 53, told the Huffington Post the row had started because her mother has arthritis and took some time to move out of the way so the man could reach the window seat.

She said: “I know that if I was behaving like he was or any other black person for that matter, police would have been called and we would have been kicked off the flight.”

When she complained to cabin crew they denied hearing any racial slurs and told her to ring customer services on Monday, she said.

The budget airline tweeted on Sunday that it had seen the footage and reported the incident to Essex police. It refused to comment further but later told the BBC that it would be “taking this matter further”.

“We operate strict guidelines for disruptive passengers and we will not tolerate unruly behaviour like this,” said a spokesperson.

“We will be taking this matter further and disruptive or abusive behaviour like this will result in passengers being banned from travel.”

Essex Police said they believed the incident had taken place at Barcelona airport.

“Essex Police takes prejudice-based crime seriously and we want all incidents to be reported,” a spokesperson said.

“We are working closely with Ryanair and the Spanish authorities on the investigation.”

Additional reporting by PA