A drunken passenger who went berserk on a packed jumbo jet after being ticked off for watching porn on a laptop computer has been jailed for three years for what was described as the "worst-ever case of air rage".

Plumber Ian Bottomley, 36, of Larch Grove, Witham, injured three stewards, caused £30,000 damage, and even invited a former soldier trying to restrain him to "step outside" seven miles above the African jungle.

Finally, after a "violent struggle", he was overpowered, handcuffed, gagged, strapped down and repeatedly sedated in a bid to restore order.

But minutes later it became necessary to crowbar the seats in front of him from their fittings to stop him trying to butt them, the jury at Isleworth crown court, west London, was told.

One fellow passenger, horrified at his almost unbelievable power during what seemed like endless hours of animal aggression, told the captain: "Get this bloody plane on the ground and get this bloody lunatic out before he kills us."

The jury of five women and seven men trying him took just over six hours to reject his claim that he was more victim than villain.

They first found him guilty of affray on British Airways flight BA056 from Johannesburg to Heathrow last January.

This was then followed by further unanimous verdicts for causing actual bodily harm to cabin crew chief Michael Stevenson, one count of being drunk aboard the aircraft, and one of endangering the plane and its passengers.

The father-of-one showed little emotion either then or when sentence was passed shortly afterwards.

Giving evidence, the divorced plumber insisted he had not been drunk and maintained that he had simply been acting in "self defence".

"I thought they were going to kill me ... I resisted -- it was a survival instinct."

Judge Andrew McDowall told the South African-born plumber, who has been in custody since the incident, that his behaviour that day had been "appalling and terrifying".

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