Another drunken Brit faces two years in Dubai jail after telling stewardess he was going to blow up plane
A drunken British air passenger who claimed he was going to detonate a bomb aboard a flight to Dubai is facing two years in jail in the Gulf state.
A court heard yesterday that Mark Winterbottom, 37, told a stewardess who saw him frantically pressing buttons on his mobile phone: 'This bomb will go off in seven minutes.'
Passengers scuffled with him before he was finally restrained. Winterbottom, whose home town was not given, denied endangering the aircraft's safety and assaulting two passengers, and claimed the remark was a joke.
Air rage: Mark Winterbottom was arrested after 'joking' he was going to detonate a bomb aboard an Emirates flight
'I was drunk. I was unaware of what I was doing,' he said.
But witness statements made clear that few passengers or crew found his alarming antics funny.
A stewardess testified that minutes before landing a female passenger had approached her in a panic, saying she and another passenger had been assaulted by Winterbottom.
“She told me in a trembling voice that he told her there was a bomb which will explode in seven minutes on the plane,” the stewardess said.
“I headed towards him and noticed that he was holding two mobile phones in his hands and pretended to be pressing the buttons,” she added.
He claimed that he told the court he suffered from anxiety and panic attacks which were worsened by alcohol.
He said he had been attacked by the other passengers and struck back in self-defence.
Winterbottom has been held in custody since the incident on July 9. He could be jailed for up to two years if convicted when the court delivers its verdict on September 17.
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office said recently that Dubai, as part of the United Arab Emirates, was now one of the most common places for Britons to get in trouble abroad.
Between April 2006 and March 2007, 230 UK passport holders were arrested in the UAE, the FCO said.
The majority were accused of flouting the country’s zero-policy on drugs, flouting the law on drinking in public, driving offences and anti-Islamic behaviour.
Currently on trial are two Britons accused of having sex on a beach in Dubai, which is home to some 100,000 Britons and which attracts many more each year as tourists.
