Mile-high drunk flees UK

An accountant who pretended to have sex in a drunken stupor on a longhaul flight in front of 200 shocked passengers has fled home to South Africa to escape a possible jail sentence, a court heard today.

Alex Mtetwa, 27, was today due to turn up for sentencing after he pleaded guilty to being drunk on an aircraft and using threatening behaviour.

Last month Uxbridge magistrates court heard how the 6ft Mtetwa and his 36-year-old girlfriend Georgia Stevens downed half a bottle of duty-free spirits before Mtetwa straddled his girlfriend and began bucking and gyrating wildly over her.

The case was sent to Isleworth crown court, where a harsher sentence could be meted out as magistrate Enid Payne ruled the offence was so serious. However, Judge John Crocker was told that Mtetwa was in South Africa although his passport had been seized when he and his girlfriend were arrested after the ninehour BA flight landed at Heathrow on 29 January.

The judge issued a warrant for his arrest for not answering bail. At Uxbridge magistrates court Funmi Ajose-Alatishe, prosecuting, said: "His trousers were loose but no part of his person was exposed. He had his hand up in the air and he was shouting 'yeah, baby, yeah!' People who heard them believed they were engaging in sexual intercourse. They were not, but that is what others believed and that was what caused them distress."

Mtetwa's girlfriend, a nightclub owner, denied using threatening words and behaviour and agreed to be bound over to keep the peace in return for the prosecution being dropped. She has returned to South Africa.

Mtetwa could have faced a custodial sentence or a fine running into thousands of pounds.