Socialite cleared

'Flying' but not sloshed

I've nothing against Clare Irby. She looks a bundle of fun, the sort I'd party with any time.

Not sure if I'd risk (or feel like) feeling her up with a g/f like Sarah Hannon snoozing in the next seat.

On t'other hand, the amount I knock back in volo, who's to say?

What truly staggers me is that a "jury of eight men and four women at Isleworth Crown Court, west London, took just 40 minutes to unanimously find her not guilty of being drunk on board an aircraft."

I'm not saying they were bribed, just that there's one verdict achievable by the rich and another by the rest of us.

Gosh but well done the Guinness house lawyer! He clearly knows his law and its loop holes.

Look at the report when it first hit the headlines: that looks exactly the sort of hi-jinx that'd land you and me in clinky, and none too gently handled by the Fuzz at touchdown.

Charged with drunk on board after being arrested by armed police [my itals]

Said to have performed a sex act on the boyfriend of model Sarah Hannon while she slept in the next seat. C'mahn - cabin crew don't have time to make this sort of thing up

Nor do they have time or motive to cook up a cock 'n' bull fairy tale that Ms Irby knocked back "copious amounts of red wine, allowed a stranger to feel her breasts and stripped to her knickers." I mean ... s'truth ~ boobs *and* knickers?

Need a witness? "Miss Hannon woke to allegedly discover Daniel Melia and Miss Irby in a clinch beside her."

Waking from a stupor

All three arrested by armed police on suspicion of gross indecency, being drunk on an aircraft and failing to obey the instructions of the crew after the plane landed at Heathrow. [Bit hard on the snoozing girlfriend]

Miss Irby and Mr Melia charged with being drunk on board; Miss Hannon told she would face no further action. [I would think not. It's not as if she chopped her bloke's ding-dong off, which would have been her every entitlement]

OK, so La Hannon is "said to have fallen asleep after their drinking session, leaving Mr Melia to become friendly with Miss Irby." So tactfully put - and doesn't that just tell you everything you need to know about men? Mile-high kamaki anyone?

Loipon, Heiress Irby and the lucky lecherous Melia then "spotted under a blanket by the cabin crew, who tried to intervene."

"Miss Hannon is understood to have woken up at this point (oops!), to find her boyfriend allegedly enjoying the sex act in the seat beside her under cover of the blanket." Double oops.

Delight it's over

Why don't I ever catch X-rated flights like that? The most adventurous I get is 'Shirley Valentine' on the in-flight - minus the censored "boat-is-boat" dialogue.

What I'm saying is, read the original account for what the hard-pressed crew reported, then gasp at the miraculous verdict extracted by Ms Irby's honey-tongued counsel.

I've been in my cups mid-air, less compromised than heiress Irby but still deserving of the book thrown at me (which it was), and I had a very different day in court.

Dept of What did I tell you:The Daily Mail's no-BS heed-worthy Jan Moir gets it in one:

The feeble Crown Prosecuter ballsed it up.

To hell that their drunkenness related only to 'time in British airspace': she behaved like a tramp, so did he. And so did the tramp of a mother prancing about celebrating their disgraceful working of a loophole.

La Bella Bryony Gordon weighs in with her usual wit and forthrectitude.