Pathologist avoids conviction for taking 8cm knife onto flight to peel scabs from his arm
The flight was delayed by almost three hours after US air marshals were alerted to the doctor's knife.
A 75-year-old doctor has avoided conviction after boarding an international flight with a knife, which he said he carried as a “habitual scratching implement” because of a skin condition.
The Downing Centre Local Court in Sydney heard that the NSW-based pathologist used the 8cm box cutter to peel scabs and dead skin from his arm and hand.
In July, he took the blade out of his toiletries bag and placed it on the tray table in front of him, alongside his medications, while his plane taxied onto the runway at Sydney International Airport.
“(The) knife had a substantial amount of dirty stains on it,” said an agreed statement of facts tendered in court.
