Businesswoman fined for spitting on flight crew in drunken state

A drunken businesswoman tried to trip up British Airways staff and spat on a stewardess when she was banned from having alcohol on a flight home from Spain, a court heard.

During take-off at Malaga, Beverley Chapman, 45, kept pressing the “call” button to demand drink.

When refused, the construction firm director repeatedly stuck her leg in the aisle to try to trip staff and spat her soft drink over a stewardess, forcing the pilot to leave the cockpit, intervene, and radio Gatwick to call police.

Chapman, right, of Chingford, later admitted she had been drinking all day before the evening flight on September 1 last year, blaming it on a split with her girlfriend of 18 years and a legal battle over their £1.3 million home, Crawley magistrates heard yesterday.

Martin O’Rourke, defending Chapman, told the court: “She wishes to apologise.

"She flew to Spain to escape the acrimony of that breakdown.”

She admitted behaving in a threatening, abusive, insulting or disorderly manner and was fined £791 plus £164 costs.