A passenger has successfully sued an airline after he found himself stranded in Japan - 1,800 miles from his destination.

Bradford-born Stephen Rees, 40, had been due to start a job as a bodyguard in the Philippines but found himself at Tokyo airport after the airline crew failed to wake him.

They should have roused him when the plane stopped over at the Philippines capital, Manila.

Mr Rees, whose parents live in Bingley, was awarded £1,150 damages against Egyptair yesterday after a judge at Luton County Court ruled that the airline was in breach of contract for failing to wake him.

He had sought damages of £250,000.

"It is a term of a contract that airlines should be responsible for disembarking passengers at their destination," said Recorder Clive Million, announcing his ruling.

Mr Rees' ordeal took place on January 16, 1996, when he flew on Flight MS 864.

He told the court that Egyptair had refused to fly him back to Manila and as a result he had lost the lucrative job.

He said he was left stranded and penniless in Tokyo and he claimed that as a result of the airline's mistake he had suffered from post-traumatic stress.

He said he had worked for nine years for a company as a bodyguard, travelling all over the world.

"I think on other airlines correct procedures are followed to prevent this sort of thing from happening," said Mr Rees.

He said when he was asleep in Manila he would have been in an upright position wearing a seat belt.

"I might as well have been dead for all the crew knew."

His barrister, Nicholas Saunders, had claimed the effect of Mr Rees missing his stop meant he had suffered medical consequences.

"He had severe depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. It was bitterly cold in Japan and he was only in his summer clothes.

"He was abandoned in Tokyo."

For Egyptair Alistair Redford said that as the wide-bodied plane had more than 300 passengers it would have been impractical to have a head count.

"He went to sleep and had experience of travelling on multi-stop flights before. It was his responsibility, He is a fully-grown adult."

Mr Rees said the airline's blunder was the start of a three-week-long nightmare as he was shuttled from one Far Eastern airport to another as he tried to return to England.

He said he made friends with two Canadian builders in Tokyo who took him on as a plasterer. But before he had raised enough cash to return home he was sacked because of a lack of expertise.

He did have enough money to get a Korean Air ticket to Seoul, South Korea, but when he landed there he refused to go through immigration and demanded to be put on a plan to Britain.

"They questioned me for hours before putting me on a flight to Hong Kong," he said.

"But when I got there they sent me back to Seoul saying I was legally the responsibility of Korean Air."

Finally, three weeks after sleeping through the stop in Manila, Mr Rees said he was escorted on to a plane back to London on the promise he would pay Korea Air within 10 days of his arrival.

Mr Rees told the court that he was now a prisoner at HMP Sudbury in Derbyshire where he was serving a four years, nine months, sentence for stealing a lorry load of fridges.

He is due to be released in November but prison bosses had allowed him home leave to fight his case and he had also been granted legal aid.

After the case he said: "I am just happy that I won.

"Travelling on an aircraft is not like on a train. Airlines have a responsibility to make sure their passengers get off."

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