A woman’s attempts to fight off the sexual advances of a drunken passenger on a Virgin Atlantic flight sparked a wild brawl between the two that caused almost AUD40,000 worth of damage to the plane.

On Friday, a magistrate in Jamaica called the man involved in the ruckus a fool and an idiot. Jason Dixon, 32, was flying from Britain to Jamaica to attend his grandfather’s funeral, the Resident Magistrate’s Court in Jamaica heard.

After drinking heavily during the eight-hour flight, Dixon became strongly attracted to a female passenger sitting next to him, an administration manager flying to the Caribbean island for a six-month volunteer placement for a local charity.

The two had never met before. The woman, Danielle Bishop, 27, fought off Dixon’s sleazy approaches so vigorously that fittings on the aircraft were damaged and the pair were both arrested on arrival at Norman Manley International Airport in Kingston. Bishop claimed Dixon attacked her after she shunned his sexual advances.

Dixon had started to ask her personal questions and had seized her hand while using derogatory terms to describe what he wanted to do to her, she claimed. She said the fight, in which Dixon allegedly ripped her clothes and yanked out strands of her hair, had happened as she defended herself. Dixon’s lawyer said his client’s “romantic illusion was due to the amount of alcohol he had been drinking”.

Magistrate Maxine Ellis fined Dixon 150,000 Jamaican dollars (about AUD1550) for malicious destruction of property and unruly behaviour on a flight, with up to nine months jail if he didn’t pay. Charges against Bishop were dropped. The magistrate told Dixon he had acted like an idiot. “You see how absolutely stupid you are?” the Jamaica Observer quoted her as saying. “You came here to bury a loved one and you act a fool. “No matter if you are sitting beside a pretty lady, where I come from no means no.

”The paper reported that Dixon, who “sports a tattoo on the left side of his neck, hung his head as his mother looked on”. In an issued statement, Virgin Atlantic said: “The safety of all our passengers and crew is of paramount importance.

Disruptive passengers are rare on Virgin Atlantic flights but like all other British airlines we take such behaviour very seriously. We will not tolerate disruptive behaviour by passengers on board any of our aircraft and always report it to the authorities.”