Jockey Paul Carberry has been jailed for two months today for setting fire to a newspaper on a plane from Spain to Dublin.
Jockey Paul Carberry
The 32-year-old rider pleaded not guilty to a charge of engaging in threatening, abusive or insulting behaviour likely to lead to a breach of the peace on the Aer Lingus flight on October 1st last year.
Carberry was arrested at Dublin Airport last October after coming off a flight from Malaga where he had been on holiday with 14 friends.
It was alleged that he set fire to a newspaper during the Aer Lingus flight leaving passengers scared and upset.
Carberry, who lives near Tara, Co Meath, claimed it was a freak accident which happened after he had been fidgeting with a lighter. He said he had been flicking it off and on and the newspaper had accidentally caught fire.
But at Swords District Court in Dublin, Judge Patrick Brady described Carberry's evidence in the case as contrived.
He said he also had to consider the seriousness of the risk to passengers on a plane travelling at 12,000ft and the distress it had caused to them.
"I would be failing in my duty if I didn't mark the offence," he said. Judge Brady sentenced Carberry to two months in jail and fined him €500.
Judge Brady said the jockey's defence team could not say that there was no danger or substantial risk from his actions in the plane, when he set The Irish Timesnewspaper of a fellow passenger on fire.
"Would the defendant, an experienced jockey, have acted similarly in a stable or a transporter, containing straw and hay? I would suggest emphatically not," he said.
Carberry was granted bail after paying €1,000 in cash and was allowed to walk free from court, pending an appeal against the conviction. He jumped into a waiting car without making any comment.
Carberry was Irish champion jockey in 2002 and three years previously rode Bobbyjo to victory in the Aintree Grand National for his trainer father Tommy.