Mother of 3 and lover who had drunken mid-air sex on flight as children watched charged with public indecency
A 35-year-old woman along with his 38-year-old lover is facing charges after they had mid-air sex in a drunken state on a Thomas Cook flight. The alleged incident happened last year when they were traveling from Manchester, U.K., to Tunisia on Thomas Cook flight MT 820 on July 29 as children watched on, a court heard.
Gemma Heap, mother of three, and Philip Mycock were both later charged with outraging public decency and being drunk on an aircraft. Today the couple from Whitefield Bury were produced at Manchester Magistrates' Court as they faced a district judge. They will soon face a trial and if convicted will be sent to jail. The maximum jail term for outraging public decency is seven years and traveling in a drunken state carries up to two years of imprisonment.
However, both Heap and Mycock, have pleaded not guilty to both charges and looked on impassively as they sat together in the dock. Their lawyer Elizabeth Syddall, defending them in front of the district judge, said her clients have denied wrongdoing and claimed they were not drunk.
The charges against them stated the couple in a “public place committed an act outraging public decency by behaving in an indecent manner, namely had or appeared to have sexual intercourse in the presence of other passengers whilst sat in your seat onboard the aircraft.”
For now, the duo has been given unconditional bail pending a pre-trial hearing next month at Minshull Street Crown Court, Manchester. “They have indicated they want to go to crown court. They will have to appear next month,” said District Judge Mark Hadfield while adjourning the case.
This is not the first case of people having sex on a flight. Last year in October, another couple was detained after being filmed having sex by shocked passengers on the flight. The incident happened on a Moscow flight when the pair in their forties started behaving inappropriately.
They had allegedly met at a Moscow airport before boarding the plane bound for Vladivostok, eastern Russia. The uninvited act of the unidentified couple was witnessed by most of the passengers on the eight-and-a-half hour flight by state-owned Rossiya Airlines.