Birmingham Airport arrests: Drunk and violent passengers among 300 detained in three years

A total of 303 passengers looking to board flights at the major airport were arrested by police since 2014.

According to an FOI request made to West Midlands Police, officers have to deal with almost two cases a week of passengers causing chaos either on board a plane or inside the airport.

Incidents reported include grievous bodily harm, wounding, violent disorder, indecent exposure and being drunk on an aircraft.

Not only this, but there were also two arrests of passengers accused of recklessly endangering the safety of an aircraft.

The majority of arrests however came for assault occasioning actual bodily harm. A total of 71 were detained for this offence.

In 2014/15 there was a total of 93 arrests, which dramatically increased in 2015/16 when 116 were detained.

But the figure dropped again in 2016/17, when 94 arrests took place.

Cases included a drunk man who was bound and gagged after lashing out on an eight-hour flight from Dubai, in November 2016.

It was reported that Khalid Mir threatened to rape a fellow passenger and spat at cabin crew as he downed Baileys and vodka on the Birmingham-bound flight.

He was arrested as the Emirates flight touched down and later jailed for sevens months, after admitting being drunk on the aircraft.

In January, it was also reported that Jason Clarke caused terror on a Birmingham-bound flight by threatening to ‘do a 9/11’.

He was abusive after downing six pints before boarding the two-hour Ryanair flight from Malaga.

He was escorted from the flight by security staff when it landed and was later jailed for eight months, having previously admitted entering an aircraft when drunk.

A statement released by West Midlands Police on the figures said: "Please note that these data should be interpreted with caution. Comparing numbers of incidents/crimes can be misleading and does not necessarily indicate the likelihood of someone being a victim of crime. In addition, the number of incidents/crimes recorded in an area over a period of time can be influenced by a number of factors. Consequently statistics on incidents/crimes for one period may not necessarily be a good indicator of future incidents in that area.

"Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that these data have been extracted from a number of data sources used by forces for police purposes. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when interpreting those data."