Briton flier faces French trial over mid-air sex assault

A British man will go on trial in France next month for sexually assaulting a crew member during a flight from England to Spain that forced the aircraft to make an emergency landing, French police and prosecutors said on Tuesday.

The man, 66, has already admitted to the assault on the flight from the English city of Leeds to Alicante in Spain that forced the emergency landing in the western French city of Nantes on Saturday morning, regional prosecutor Renaud Gaudeul said.

The aircraft’s captain ordered the emergency landing while the female air steward filed a complaint and the man was arrested, the French border forces said in a statement to AFP.

The man, a pensioner, has now been released under judicial control and must now appear in court for the trial on December 13, Nantes prosecutors said in a statement.

The accused “admitted to what was committed against the air attendant. He was in a seriously drunken state when he was handed over the the border police,” added Gaudeul.

The Ouest France daily added that the man had been flying with the low-cost British carrier Jet2.

It said he is accused of putting his hand under the skirt of the air attendant and touching her intimate parts during the in-flight distribution of refreshments.

In mid-May, a Ryanair flight between Manchester in England and Faro in Portugal was also diverted to Nantes airport after five drunken English travellers disturbed other passengers.

mas-et-sjw/adp/yad