Cathay client loses appeal over swearing fine
A court has rejected claims that one of Cathay Pacific's check-in staff accused a first-class passenger and his mother of being terrorists immediately before the passenger swore at her, incurring a HK$1,000 fine and a criminal conviction.
Deputy High Court Judge Peter Line yesterday dismissed an appeal by Jiaravanon Jiaciplo over the conviction, which was obtained under special laws applying to the airport.
The Airport Authority Bylaw prohibits people from 'using threatening, abusive, obscene or offensive language, or [behaving] in a riotous, disorderly, indecent or offensive manner'.
It applies to the entire airport, excluding certain roads and parts controlled by the MTR Corporation.
The court heard that on August 22, 2006, Jiaravanon was waiting to board a Cathay flight to New York when he received a call from his mother telling him not to leave without taking an important gift she had forgotten to give him.
His mother tried to persuade the check-in staff member to carry the gift through to the restricted area to give it to her son, but the woman refused, citing security regulations.
Jiaravanon also tried to persuade the worker to fulfil the request, but when she again refused, he cancelled his flight and went out to meet his mother and to complain about the treatment they had received from the staff member.
An argument ensued, during which Jiaravanon uttered the 'f word' and apparently tried to photograph the woman, who then called police.
Jiaravanon, through counsel Clive Grossman, SC, maintained that he and his mother were called terrorists by the woman. He said she also cursed them in Cantonese while on the phone with colleagues. He claimed she then made up the swearing story to cover her tracks.
Mr Justice Line, however, considered the claim 'wholly unrealistic' and a 'dishonest invention' designed to counter the question: 'Why would someone routinely at work doing this job choose to invent a false allegation against a first-class customer?'
'In my judgment, asking who it was that lost their temper and became angry provides an insight as to who is telling the truth here,' the judge said.
He noted that Jiaravanon might have felt justified in his anger after 'missing his flight and losing a first-class ticket over a matter he perceived could have been resolved ... with a little exceptional treatment of the sort he felt was due to a first-class passenger'.
'It is not difficult to see how, in these circumstances, a man of good character, for [Jiaravanon] was such, could let his anger rule his tongue,' Mr Justice Line said in dismissing the appeal.
The maximum fine for a single offence of using obscene language is HK$2,000. By contrast, someone who tries to walk the wrong way up an escalator could be liable to a fine of up to HK$10,000 and three months' jail.
