“An Indian national has been jailed after he sexually assaulted a 12-year-old girl on his flight to Heathrow.

Javed Inamdar, 34, groped the schoolgirl on a British Airways flight from Mumbai to Heathrow in December last year.

Isleworth Crown Court heard, the shipping company boss had ‘tested the waters’ by stroking the girl’s hand before touching her chest as she slept.

The young victim woke up crying and screamed out ‘get the f*** away from me’ on the red-eye flight over the Pacific.

When confronted by a flight attendent, the father-of-two allegedly told them he ‘may have confused the young girl with his wife’.

The shipping boss from Mumbai denied one count of assaulting a girl under 13 by touching but was found guilty by a jury.

Inamdar appeared in the dock at Isleworth Crown Court, assisted by a Hindi interpreter, for sentencing and cried throughout.

Lee Sergent, defending, said: ‘He comes from a different part of the world in India…

Cabin manager Rebecca Rooney said she found the girl ‘visibly distressed’, and had ‘her knees to her chest and was hugging herself’ at just after midnight on December 14…

Inamdar claimed he thought the girl ‘was his wife’ and that he had ‘fallen asleep cuddling her’.

He also insisted he was asleep when he assaulted the girl.”