A former Research In Motion executive who was fined after an infamous drunken rampage ended up being deported from Canada, according to several news sources.
George Campbell was a vice-president with RIM (now renamed BlackBerry) in December, 2011, when he and fellow RIM vice-president Paul Wilson were arrested after their unruly behaviour aboard an Air Canada flight from Toronto to Beijing forced the plane to land in Vancouver.
Campbell and Wilson were ordered to pay nearly $72,000 in restitution to Air Canada and were given one-year suspended jail sentences. They both lost their jobs at RIM.
The details that emerged during the case were little short of astounding. The two men had reportedly been drinking, and took sleeping pills to help them relax. That’s when the craziness began.
At one point, Campbell began singing and banging on his seat, swore and yelled at other passengers and kicked their seats.
Lying on his stomach, Campbell kicked the floor, like a child having a tantrum.
Wilson tried to get out of his seat but fell forward into a flight attendant and passenger.
Flight attendants eventually had to place the two RIM execs in plastic restraints, but one of them reportedly “chewed his way free,” the Globe and Mail reported. They were then restrained with tape until the flight made an emergency landing at Vancouver airport.
In court documents filed in January but only unearthed by news sources recently, it emerged that 46-year-old Campbell, a native of Scotland, was deported from Canada after being dismissed from RIM. He had been in Canada on a work permit.
Thirty-nine-year-old Wilson, also a native of Scotland, is a permanent resident of Canada but has had trouble finding work since the incident, the court heard.
Both men face “a significant civil suit from Air Canada and … suffered considerable shame over their behaviour. In addition, they spen[t] two nights in custody,” the court was told, as reported at the Globe.
A judge in B.C’s Court of Appeal had one sliver of good news for the duo, rejecting an Air Canada claim that the men pay an additional $50,000 to the airline to reimburse it for vouchers given to passengers who were delayed in Vancouver.
The judge decided vouchers did not count as an actual cost to the airline, since they may not have been used by the passengers, the Province reported.
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