Mom & dad were fined $1000. Charges against the son were dropped as no one was in court to testify against them.
An Ontario law firm representing a Cape Breton family that were taken off a Sunwing jet in Bermuda last Friday night has issued a public statement saying no one in the family was smoking on the plane.
“At no point did any member of the MacNeil family smoke on the airplane,” says the statement signed by Michael Haraschuk, a lawyer with Weaver Simmons LLP in Sudbury.
A Sunwing Airlines flight was en route from Halifax to the Dominican Republic when it was diverted to Bermuda after an incident on board involving the MacNeil family of Mabou.
In an email to media outlets Thursday evening, Haraschuk wrote that the law firm represents the MacNeil family and was making the statement on its behalf.
“There has been a great deal of information released about this incident that will be clarified in the fullness of time and in the proper forum,” he said in the email.
A Sunwing spokesman said this week that the company plans to sue the MacNeils to recover the costs associated with the unscheduled landing and for costs related to accommodating other passengers overnight in Bermuda.
The law firm’s statement says there has been “misinformation” circulating about whether members of the MacNeil family were smoking on the airplane.
It says David MacNeil Jr. was charged with smoking in a lavatory in the plane.
He entered “a plea of not guilty to the charge of smoking on the airplane and the charge was dismissed.”
Reached Friday morning, Haraschuk said that the family has been swamped with calls from the media.
“They need some rest over there, right.
“We thought it would be appropriate to issue something, and as you can see there is a lot of information out there. There are a lot of stories out there. We are not going to be able to get into anything until the proper time and the proper forum,” he said
David MacNeil, 54, pleaded guilty in Bermuda court Monday to behaving in a disorderly manner by using abusive and offensive language on the flight. His wife, Darlene MacNeil, 52, pleaded guilty to disobeying a lawful order by a flight attendant.
The couple were fined $500 each.
David MacNeil Jr., 22, and his father each denied a charge of disobeying a lawful order. Those charges were dismissed after the Crown offered no evidence.
The court was told that problems began when David MacNeil Jr., who needed to use the washroom, was told by flight attendants to return to his seat until the captain had turned off the seatbelt sign.
MacNeils didn't smoke on Sunwing flight, their lawyer says | The Chronicle Herald