The tear gas affected more than 20 people with some ‘vomiting blood’
A gang of thugs have been jailed after they used tear gas in Heathrow Airport to try to take women’s suitcases.
On December 7 last year, Terminal 3 of the airport descended into chaos after four men were seen using CS spray. Dozens of people were left coughing, choking and even “vomiting blood” in the ordeal as the airport closed the terminal for hours, the court heard.
The attack saw four masked men release the gas in a lift at the airport car part at 8am before they made off with victims’ suitcases.
One woman who was sprayed in the face before her suitcase was taken was one of five of 21 victims who needed medical treatment.
Now, the gang of four responsible have been jailed. Tyrone Richards, 31, Anton Clarke-Butcher, 25, Omoneke Whyte, 31, and Denzel Eduardo, 29, pleaded guilty to affray at Isleworth Crown Court in June.
Richards has been jailed for 27 months, White and Eduardo for 23 months and Clarke-Butcher was sentenced to 21 months’ imprisonment, The Mirror reports.
Judge Kwame Inyundo said: “Individuals were targeted by you as a group and the violence used in the incident was serious and sustained.”
In the lift where the four men used the spray were two women, who had arrived from a flight from Johannesburg in South Africa, and two men who had met them at the airport.
The court heard that the defendants were prevented from entering by the group as “innocent parties ran away from the lift in some distress”. As the lift arrived on the ground floor, the gas was sprayed which also caused “difficulties for people at a Caffè Nero nearby”.
A barista at the cafe said she started coughing and vomiting blood. She told the court how she “felt fine one minute and then almost instantly unwell”.
Meanwhile, others in the area needed treatment in hospital after coming into contact with the substance which is used by police forces to tear gas to incapacitate people.
The court then heard the defendants followed the two women to an airport taxi forecourt where they made off with their suitcases, which were never recovered. One woman says she was “coughing and choking” after being sprayed with the CS gas at close range.
The judge said it became clear the four men “had a particular and determined interest” in the women’s suitcases.
“Your group followed and confronted the pair (of women) who tried to get a taxi,” Judge Inyundo said. “Your group threatened violence to them and took the suitcases from them.”
A member of staff in Terminal 3 also described the incident as “terrifying”, saying that she “felt dizzy and like I was going to pass out” and that a woman in a wheelchair she was helping “was struggling to breathe and using an inhaler”.
A mum who arrived from South Africa with her 14-month-old son also said the youngster started to cough. She told the court: “I was immediately afraid for my baby’s safety and my own safety”.
Another witness, a man ordering a taxi from the airport’s car park, said he saw “20 to 30 people” coughing after the incident while he was “struggling to breathe”.
Prosecutor Gary Rutter said he “could not say exactly what led to this incident”, but “one may suspect what was going on”. He added that the incident left “members of the public, coughing, vomiting, and some vomited blood”.
Police arrested Richards at the airport while the other three were later identified and arrested separately.
The court heard the “evidence is not clear as to who deployed the gas”, but that each man accepted their involvement in the joint enterprise.
The lawyer for Eduardo, who has 12 previous convictions for 18 offences, said he would have “not agreed to take part in any activity involving such a substance” and that he expressed “deep remorse”.
Rushnay Sikander, representing Whyte, said he was “very remorseful”. The lawyer also told the court that Whyte had a “traumatic childhood” which saw his father being murdered when he was five and that he has also been the victim of three separate stabbings.
Shanda McAteer, representing Clarke-Butcher, who has 14 convictions for 31 offences, said he denied releasing the gas and “genuinely expresses remorse”.
