Page 4 QQQ Daily Mail, Thursday, August 1, 2019
Threat
pilotsg
Wealthy
art dealer
attacked
lover in
drunken
row at
£4m f lat
guilty to a third alleged attack at
celebrity nightclub Tape London,
Mayfair, and the charge was
dropped by the prosecution.
Defence barrister William Clegg
QC told the court: ‘There was an
incident in a nightclub where a
scratch and bruise were sustained.
Very minor injuries.’ He addedBeaten: Georgia Barry in an Instagram imageJoseph Nahmad: Leaving courtBy Arthur Martin
HUNDREDS of thousands of British Airways passen-
gers face summer strike chaos after pilots were cleared
to hold a crippling walkout.
Britain’s flag carrier yesterday failed to stop industrial action
after a legal challenge was rejected by appeal judges.
Pilots’ union Balpa has now made it clear the protest will go ahead
unless there is a breakthrough in negotiations this week.
The union did not announce strike dates – but urged BA to ‘wake
up to reality’ as it stressed there was overwhelming support for
action unless pilots across the UK receive a better pay deal. Balpa
teamed up with unions Unite and GMB to submit a joint pay claim
and were offered 11.5 per cent pay deal.
It emerged last night that members of GMB and Unite, which
represent 90 per cent of BA staff, have accepted the deal.
This includes BA’s check-in staff at Heathrow, who are paid around
£20,700 on average, and baggage handlers, who get about £23,800.
Yet pilots are holding out on a
deal that would push their aver-
age salary up to £200,000.
Talks at the London offices of
conciliation service Acas
resumed yesterday and are
scheduled to continue for the
rest of the week.
Balpa warned the ‘window for
negotiation and compromise is
closing fast’ and pointed out
that union laws mean it is only
required to give two weeks
notice if it intends to strike.
This means it could go ahead
from mid-August, at the height
of the summer holidays.
In an initial attempt to stop
strikes, BA argued in the High
Court last week that the ballot
by Balpa did not comply with
trade union law. However, a
judge dismissed the firm’s appli-
cation for an interim injunction
to prevent strike action. A Court
of Appeal challenge failed yes-
terday, meaning the airline hascost the airline more than set-
tling the dispute by giving pilots
a bigger pay rise.
Holidaymakers with BA flights
booked over the next few weeks
face an agonising wait.
The airline has warned that
about 800 flights could be
grounded on the first day of
strike action, affecting around
130,000 passengers a day.
In a statement, BA said it was
‘disappointed’ that Balpa had
chosen to threaten customers’
holidays with ‘unprecedented
strike action’.
n Ryanair has warned it is pre-
paring to shed hundreds of jobs- as it has too many staff. The
budget airline’s boss Michael
O’Leary said the firm needed
600 fewer pilots and cabin crew
by next year.
Comment – Page 18
By James Salmon Transport EditorWhat is the pay
dispute about?
BA has offered pilots a 11.5 per
cent rise over three years,
but they want a bigger hike
linked to the discredited
measure of inflation called
the Retail Price Index. Pilots
also want a bonus linked to
the airline’s record profits.When could strike
action start?
Pilots’ union Balpa has yet to
make any potential dates
public. But it has to give at
least two weeks’ notice by
law, so strikes could happen
in mid-August at the earliest.What rights do
passengers have?
Airlines are obliged to
provide a refund or a suitable
alternative flight in the event
of a cancellation. Passengers
are also entitled to assistance
including free meals, drinks
and hotel stays if required.
This also applies if your flight
is delayed by strike action.Q&A
‘Wake up
to reality’exhausted legal options to block
industrial action.
During the legal battle, court
documents submitted by BA
revealed that pilots are paid an
average salary of £167,000 a year.
The pay hike on offer would be
worth just over £19,000 on aver-
age. Pilots also receive an hourly
‘flying allowance’, which is typi-
cally worth between £14,000 and
£15,000 a year.
Balpa’s general secretary, Brian
Strutton, said he was deter-
mined to find a ‘peaceful solu-
tion’ and avoid strikes,
But he warned: ‘BA’s attempt
to defeat the democratic view
of their pilots in court, rather
than deal with us across the
negotiating table, has sadly
wasted huge amounts of time
and money that could have
been put into finding a peaceful
resolution. Now the window for
negotiation and compromise is
closing fast. BA need to wake
up to reality.
‘Our ballot returned 93 per
cent in favour of strike action.’
In court BA had claimed a strike
could cost it up to £40million a
day, as well as causing mayhem
for passengers. Balpa, which
represents around 3,800 of BA’s
4,500 pilots, claimed that a sin-
gle day of strike action would‘Banging her head
against a wall’
THE son of a billionaire art
dealer could face jail after
he admitted banging
his girlfriend’s head against
a wall in a drunken row
at his multi-million-pound
apartment.
Joseph Nahmad, whose family is
said to have the largest stock of
Impressionist and modern art in
the world, inflicted a ‘considerable
beating’ on Georgia Barry at his
London home in March.
The 31-year-old, who is a
prominent art dealer in his
own right, also attacked Miss
Barry in another incident five
months earlier.
He has now pleaded guilty to two
charges of assault occasioning
actual bodily harm.
A crown court was told that both
attacks took place at his £4million
home in The Knightsbridge Apart-
ments, just yards from Hyde Park
and Harrods, after the couple had
been drinking heavily.
Prosecutor John Fairhead said
Miss Barry had also accused
Nahmad of picking up a knife
during the second attack.
She allegedly told police officers:
‘He picked up a knife and said:
“Are you going to say sorry?” He
threw it on to the counter.’
Nahmad denies the claim that he
picked up a knife.
Outlining the case, Mr Fairhead
told Southwark Crown Court:
‘This is in the context of a consid-
erable beating – banging her head
against a wall.
‘Both parties drank to excess
and she on two occasions says she
was tipsy.’ Nahmad pleaded not
he is due to be sentenced and
could face a custodial term.
The defendant is the son of
billionaire David Nahmad, who
with his brothers Giuseppe and
Ezra established the family as
world-famous fine art dealers.
David and Ezra Nahmad have an
art collection worth around
£2.47billion. Their haul of Picassos
alone, which contains more than
300 works by the Spanish master,
tops £823million.
Joseph Nahmad followed in the
footsteps of his Beirut-born father,
uncles and cousin, who runs the
Nahmad Contemporary gallery in
New York.
He made his own waves in the art
industry in 2016 with the launch of
Nahmad Projects in Mayfair.
At the time, the young dealer
promised to ‘bring a radical edge
to Mayfair’s contemporary art
scene’. He also once made the
under-30s Forbes rich list.
Nahmad’s cousin Hillel, known
as Helly, is, reported to be close
friends with actor Leonardo
DiCaprio.
In March last year, Hillel was
given a 366-day prison sentence
for running an illegal high-stakes
gambling business from his
£17.2million home in New York’s
Trump Tower.
But the charges of racketeering
and money laundering were
dropped as part of a plea agree-
ment and Hillel agreed to forfeit
more than £4million in cash.
The scandal made the front page
of The New York Times.
The family’s empire was created
by Joseph’s grandfather Giuseppe,
whose love of Italian sports cars
and beautiful women earned him
the nickname ‘Joe Farouk’ after
the opulent former King of Egypt.X X
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O X O
X
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Today’s difficulty rating ★★★that Miss Barry had attempted to
withdraw all three allegations
against Nahmad.
In a statement to the court
on Monday, the art dealer said:
‘She was in a consensual, loving
relationship that at times
became toxic.’
Judge Jeffrey Pegden QC bailed
Nahmad until September 2 when