Irish cycling Paralympian James Brown, who was sent to prison for a year for glueing himself to a plane as part of an environmental protest, says he hopes to be free for Christmas.
"My sentence is 12 months but a combination of various early release schemes means I’m eligible to be released with an ankle tag on December 24th," he said in a letter from Wandsworth Prison published by Extinction Rebellion.
"We are appealing both the conviction and the sentence, and applying for bail pending the appeals. I’m not expecting the appeal dates before Christmas though this is possible. As soon as I know more I’ll share of course and hope that many can come to court for the hearings.
"I’m handling prison better than I thought, I have a wonderful roommate Steve and the ratio of laughter to tears in our cell is 100 to 1. I have time for reflection and planning ahead for the future."
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Brown, who is registered as blind, climbed onto a British Airways plane on the morning of October 10th, 2019, at London City Airport. He then superglued his hand to the aircraft, which was bound for Amsterdam; live streaming his action for Extinction Rebellion.
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He wedged his mobile phone in the door of the plane to prevent it from closing. The details of the incident emerged at Southwark Crown Court in July.
His court hearing was told his actions affected about 300 passengers on the day and had cost about £40,000. He was freed from the top of the plane by firefighters after about an hour and was arrested.
Brown (56) was convicted in July on one count of causing a public nuisance after representing himself in court and in September he was jailed for a year.
"You cynically used your disability to put your plan into action," Judge Gregory Perrins told Brown at the sentencing hearing at Southwark Crown Court last month.
Brown won two gold medals, in athletics, at the Paralympic Games in 1984 for Great Britain and later declared for Ireland, as he was born in Northern Ireland. He won bronze for Ireland in the TT at the London Paralympics, with Damien Shaw as pilot.
