‘INTOXICATED’ | 

Man who exposed himself to cops after being barred from flight given community service

In July the embarrassed flasher said he was “deeply sorry” and claimed he’d had “a few too many”

6th October 2022

A boozed-up GAA star barred from a flight to Ibiza for being too drunk repeatedly exposed his ‘Balearics’ to shocked police officers outside an airport.

Gavin Goodfellow took a slash outside Belfast International Airport and later flashed his bits at a female cop in June.

In July the embarrassed flasher, from Edendoit Road in Pomeroy in Tyrpne, told the Sunday World he was “deeply sorry” and claimed he’d had “a few too many” before the flight.

• He claimed then that it happened because he’d been caught short after all the beer he’d drank and just desperately needed to go to the toilet.

• But in court this week the truth came out that on top of urinating in public he’d actually waved his penis at police while laughing – in full view of the public.

• And that’s why on top of a 100-hour community service order the judge at Antrim Magistrates’ Court also ordered him to sign the sex offenders’ register for five years.

A lawyer for the 26-year-old told the court on Tuesday, Goodfellow had already learned a “salutary lesson” and referenced how the Sunday World had turned up at his home.

Defence counsel Blaine Nugent revealing there had been “significant media attention to the case with the tabloid media arriving at his door the day after he was charged”.

The day we turned up to his door was the day after he was charged but he also pleaded guilty to the charges of indecent behaviour and exposure that day.

Goodfellow’s father told us his son was at work and revealed he knew nothing about his son’s airport escapades.

Completely in the dark about the exposure charge he explained his embarrassed son had claimed to the family he missed the trip to Ibiza because of a failure to provide the necessary Covid travel certificate.

In truth he had pleaded guilty to a charge of indecent behaviour and a second charge of “exposing his genitals to cause alarm” to a named airport police constable during the drunken episode.

On Tuesday a prosecuting lawyer outlined how staff at a cafe in Aldergrove called police for help “regarding a male passenger who was intoxicated, falling off a chair and bothering staff and passengers.”

Having identified Goodfellow, he claimed he was getting a flight to Ibiza but staff at the check in desk confirmed he had earlier been refused boarding because he was too drunk to fly.

Goodfellow was told to leave and police stayed in the area in case he either “hurt himself or tried to get back in” but a short time later, he was again trying to get into the check-in hall, claiming he had managed to book a flight but again, check in staff confirmed there was no such booking.

“Escorted from the building, the defendant continued to remain in the area and tried to get back in before he went to a nearby hedge where taxis and buses were parked, pulled down the front of his shorts and began urinating,” she told the court.

Warned by the police about his behaviour, Goodfellow tried to get back into the airport building, claiming he needed to use the toilet but when he was again warned about urinating in public, “he started to laugh at police, turned slightly, pulled his shorts down and grabbed his genitals”.

“Police shouted at him to stop but he repeated the gesture and there were members of the public in the area at the time,” said the lawyer.

Mr Nugent said he accepted “at the outset that it’s a significant offence given the locus in particular.”

He told the court that Goodfellow had been with a group of friends going to a stag weekend in Ibiza but while the others had all boarded the flight, the defendant had been too intoxicated to fly.

“There’s little doubt that he was intoxicated and significantly so,” said the barrister submitting that “but for that intoxication, these are offences that would not have occurred – it’s no excuse but it puts it in context.”

He further submitted there had been no sexual element or sexual thrill to the offending but rather a “lack of maturity and decision making”.

Sentencing Goodfellow, District Judge Nigel Broderick told him “I think you have recognised what you did was a very foolish thing” and was a very serious matter given the “wide variety” of people at an airport, including children, who could’ve seen him.

He told the Sunday World in July he’d had a “few too many” and missed his flight and then was caught urinating in a bush outside the Co Antrim airport but he didn’t want to get into the full details of what happened.

“In regard to the two offences I pleaded guilty to this week I’d like to place on record my apologies to anyone who it affected, especially the staff at the airport,” he said.

“I’m deeply sorry for what happened. It was completely out of character. I’d like to draw a line under it and continue with my life and I’ll make sure this doesn’t ever happen again