Ryanair racism incident

On 19 October 2018, an incident occurred on a Ryanair flight FR9015 from Barcelona to London Stansted. During the incident, David Mesher, a 70 year old white man from Birmingham, racially abused Delsie Gayle, a 77 year old black woman from East London, who was seated next to him. After she was slow to move from her seat, he became abusive, using expletives against her and referring to her as a "stupid ugly cow" and an "ugly black bastard". Various passengers and staff asked Mesher to desist from his behaviour. Staff ultimately decided that he should remain in his seat rather than being removed from the plane, with Gayle being asked to move seats instead.

Another passenger, David Lawrence, filmed the incident and posted the footage to social media; he commented that he wanted to raise wider public awareness of the racist incidents that black Caribbean people experience. There it gained widespread attention; international mainstream media coverage followed. A number of prominent politicians condemned the incident and Ryanair's response to it. Ryanair were criticised for not removing Mesher from the plane and handing him over to Spanish police; for moving Gayle rather than Mesher; and for failing to appropriately apologise to her after the incident.

Several days later, police revealed that they had discovered Mesher's identity and gave the information to the Spanish authorities. Barcelona City Council announced that it had instructed its public prosecutor to determine whether his actions constituted a hate crime under Spanish law. A week after the incident, Mesher publicly apologised to Gayle on the ITV Breakfast television show ''Good Morning Britain'' and rejected the idea that he was racist. Gayle did not accept the apology; her daughter rejected his claims to not be racist. Provided by Wikipedia