Twin sisters hauled before judge after drink fuelled row caused plane to be turned around at Manchester Airport

Twin sisters were hauled before a judge after a drink fuelled row caused a plane to be turned around.

Laura Butterworth was ‘incoherent, volatile and abusive’ and began vomiting after being thrown off the plane at Manchester Airport. Katie Butterworth was ‘argumentative’ and did not sit down when asked.

The pair, university graduates both aged 34, caused trouble on an aircraft which was taxiing before its departure to Fuerteventura. Katie Butterworth’s barrister told Manchester Crown Court: “The holiday was simply to have an inexpensive break in the sun for a week with her sister, which didn’t go to plan.”

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Prosecutors told how the twins both boarded a TUI flight on June 1 this year, on different aisles but sat one in front of the other. Laura Butterworth became involved in an argument with a woman sitting next to her, after the defendant’s bag fell into the aisle and its contents ‘spilled onto the floor’.

Laura blamed the woman for the bag falling and called her ‘vile’, prosecutor Adam White said. The sisters also became involved in an argument, he said.

The cabin crew manager decided to move Laura to another seat away from her sister. The manager said Laura was ‘completely incoherent’ and ‘volatile towards myself and other crew members’.

She said that mum-of-three Katie Butterworth got up from her seat and said she had done nothing wrong. Katie was ‘constantly up and down out of her seat’, according to the crew manager.

The manager decided that due to their behaviour, the plane would be turned around and brought back to the terminal. The pair were removed from the aircraft and arrested by police.

After being charged, Katie Butterworth said: “I got blanketed with Laura, they couldn't tell us apart. They treated us as the same person, everything she did I got equal blame for and I wasn't the same. I don't like throwing her into it but it's not fair, it wasn't like that.”

Katie Butterworth, of Redhill Drive, Stockport, pleaded guilty to intentionally interfering with performance of an aircraft member’s duty, while Laura Butterworth, of Lapwing Lane, Brinnington, pleaded guilty to entering an aircraft when drunk.

Defending Katie Butterworth, Sarah Hussell said that the defendant had drunk two glasses of wine before getting onboard, but denied that she was ‘intoxicated’. She said that Katie, who runs a ‘successful printing business’, had undergone a stressful period before the flight, having to home school her child and agreeing a payment plan for debts.

“The holiday was simply to have an inexpensive break in the sun for a week with her sister, which didn’t go to plan,” Ms Hussell said. Defending Laura Butterworth, Naomi Duckworth said the defendant had expressed ‘deep remorse’ for her actions which were ‘totally out of character’. She said Butterworth is currently unemployed but is ‘working through the recruitment process’ for a job with the fire service, adding they are aware of her conviction.

Sentencing, Judge Patrick Field KC told the twins: "Some people think it is acceptable to drink to excess before they get onto an aeroplane, and then inflict their entitled and obnoxious bad behaviour upon fellow passengers and air crew alike. Well it isn’t.

“You are twins, you are both 34-years-old, intelligent and well educated women. You should both have known better than to behave in the way you did.”

He told Laura: “You were so drunk that you were incoherent, volatile and abusive. It is said that you described another passenger’s behaviour as vile. I think that epithet was perhaps more apposite to describe your own behaviour on this occasion.”

Noting Katie said she had not been intoxicated, the judge told her: “You had had so much that your behaviour was less inhibited than it should have been.” The pair were both handed 12 month community orders.

Katie Butterworth was ordered to carry out 60 hours of unpaid work and 15 rehabilitation activity requirement days. Laura Butterworth was told to complete 120 hours of unpaid work.