Other airline passengers have committed lewd acts

NEIL PRENDEVILLE is not the first airline passenger to commit a lewd act on board an aircraft — and probably will not be the last. Another well-known Irishman, jockey Timmy Murphy, was handed a six-month jail sentence after an alcohol-fuelled incident on a plane.

Murphy was jailed for 91 days in England after being found guilty of indecently assaulting an air stewardess on a flight from Tokyo to Heathrow in April 2002.

After that, he chose the path of the wayward celebrity — sobriety, rehab and the inevitable tell-all book. He made his way back to the top of his career and added a triumph when he won the Aintree Grand National in 2008.