The Danish golfer Thorbjorn Olesen was cleared yesterday of sexual assault and wreaking havoc on a British Airways flight after persuading a jury that he had had no control over his actions and had behaved like an “automaton”.
Olesen, 31, was accused of groping a woman and of being abusive to cabin crew. He said he had suffered an adverse reaction to sleeping pills.
The golfer, who was travelling with his fellow Ryder Cup competitors Ian Poulter and Justin Rose, used the defence of automatism, meaning that his conduct was not voluntary and he had no control over his actions.
The jury in London deliberated for an hour before clearing him of sexual assault, assault by beating and being drunk on an aircraft.
Olesen wept as the verdict was given, before apologising in a statement in which he said he had been “embarrassed and ashamed” by the accounts of actions that he did not remember.
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Olesen, a five-time European tour winner, was accused of grabbing a woman’s breast, pushing a member of the cabin crew and urinating on his first class seat on the flight to Heathrow from Nashville in July 2019.
Cabin crew tried to restrain him as he wandered around the plane swearing, fleeing from staff “like a little boy”, and making the sign of the cross, the Aldersgate House Nightingale court was told.
Olesen had had five alcoholic drinks before boarding the flight. He took two melatonin tablets, which he said he had used regularly to combat jet lag, along with two zolpidem pills put into his bag by his partner, Lauren Zafer, an accountant at PwC. He told the jury that he would never “consciously” have risked his career by committing a crime, and had no memory of the flight after taking the sleeping pills.
Zafer, with whom Olesen has a child, later told him she had experienced incidents, including vacuuming their whole house and eating Christmas chocolates without remembering, after taking the pills for insomnia.
Olesen’s barrister, Trevor Burke QC, told the jury that “his conduct was not voluntary, that is the essence of automatism”. The court was told that the medication can cause side-effects including memory loss, sleep-walking and lack of co-ordination, and Burke said that all of his client’s actions were “explainable, medically speaking”.
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The case echoed the 2002 trial of the REM guitarist Peter Buck, who was cleared of being drunk on a plane, assaulting cabin crew and causing criminal damage to BA property. He blamed a sleeping pill for turning him into an automaton during a ten-hour flight from Seattle to Heathrow.
Olesen said: “I want to apologise wholeheartedly to everyone on board the flight . . . who was affected by my behaviour. I do not remember anything after takeoff, but I am embarrassed and ashamed by the account of my actions that was outlined during the trial.
“My behaviour was completely out of character and nothing like this has ever happened to me before or since.”
Olesen was part of the European Ryder Cup team that beat the US in 2018, and had sponsorship deals with companies including Nike, BMW, Rolex and Titleist. He was suspended and lost contracts after his arrest at Heathrow, and has struggled on the European Tour since he was reinstated, falling from 51st to 440th in the world.
“I have learnt from my mistake and will make sure I never put myself in a similar position again,” he said. “I now want to focus on my golf, free from distractions, and to repay the trust of everyone who has kept faith in me.” throughout this very difficult time.”
