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Airport man\'s sentence

May 23 2009
The homeless chef dubbed ‘Terminal Man‘ goes down for breaching antisocial behaviour orders A homeless chef who once earned ¬¨¬£80,000 a year has been jailed for breaching an Asbo banning him from living in an airport. Anthony Delaney, 43, was given a 15-month sentence last month after he kept returning to Gatwick Airport. He started to live there in 2004 after walking out on his job and losing his luxury flat while suffering from stress. Delaney lived at the airport for almost four years - eating, sleeping and showering there, and only leaving to collect unemployment benefits. He said: "I didn't have any friends. Occasionally, I would talk to people, but then they'd get on a plane and you'd never see them again." Lewes Crown Court heard that he liked Gatwick, as he could shower before job interviews. His plight led him to be nicknamed Terminal Man, after the film starring Tom Hanks as an immigrant forced to live at New York's JFK airport after war erases his home country from the map, voiding his passport. Mr Delaney was first barred from Gatwick until 2011 in 2006, after he was convicted of stealing from passengers and an airport store. Over the next two years, he was caught breaking the Asbo three times, and in February this year he was jailed for 95 days. He was released immediately because of the time he had already spent on remand, and within a few hours he was found at Gatwick , breaking the order for a fourth time. On 3th June he broke the order again and was arrested. His lawyer, Ahmed Hossain, said he was in a vicious circle of getting into trouble for being at Gatwick and then returning there when he had nowhere else to go. Judge Richard Haywood admitted he had felt "sympathy" for Delaney, but he had been caught shoplifting. Mark Grant, of London-based homeless charity Broadway, said: "Airports are safe and warm places for homeless people to live. People will be drawn to them as places of shelter. But the problem is that there are no support services in place to help vulnerable people. "Broadway has an outreach programme at Heathrow airport, but not yet at Gatwick. Work needs to be done to help people like Anthony Delaney."
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April – May 2024 : Compassion

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