An anti-Israel activist has been jailed for six months after she launched an expletitive-laden racist attack against staff on an Air India flight.
Simone Burns from Hove, also known as Simone O’Broin, was videoed ranting drunkenly about her work as “an international criminal lawyer for the f***ing Palestinian people”, and spitting in the face of a member of the cabin crew.
Burns was sentenced at Isleworth Crown Court on Thursday. She pleaded guilty to both assault and being drunk on an aircraft at her trial at Uxbridge Magistrates Court.
As Breitbart News reported, the incident occured last November as barrister Burns, 50, appeared inebriated – or at least overly tired and emotional – when she went on her tirade on a flight from Mumbai to London Heathrow.
Burns, who worked as a head researcher for the anti-Israel Badil organization as late as 2011, was filmed by fellow passengers telling flight attendants she is a “leader of the f***ing boycott movement,” and clapping in the air in front of a crew member. She added: “If I say boycott f***ing Air India, done. Do you understand me? You can’t give me a wee bottle of wine?”
During her hour-long verbal assault Burns also called airline staff “Indian, money grabbing c****,” and smoked a cigarette in the toilets.
At her hearing last month, a magistrate had told her that she “clearly put the safety of the aircraft in jeopardy by smoking.
“You were disruptive to other passengers who must have found the whole experience quite shocking. The disruption was clearly over a long period of time, the level of racist abuse was prolonged and unwarranted – there’s no excuse for that.”
He also said that her “spitting in the face must have been one of the most awful things that can happen to anybody, given the transmission of diseases”.
Belfast-born Burns, who trained as a lawyer in the UK, studied international law and worked in the Middle East, was understood to be on her way home from a two month break in Goa when she was caught on film.
After touchdown she was arrested in London by officers from the Metropolitan Police.