Teen thrown off plane for brawl with stepfather

London: A teenager was thrown off a holiday flight and left behind in Portugal after a furious mid-air brawl at 35,000ft with his stepfather that forced the pilot to make an emergency landing.

Lee Doran, 17, was on his first trip abroad along with half-brother Dylan, stepfather David Laughton, his partner Sarah Wilson, and their son Harry.

During the flight to the Spanish island Lanzarote, Laughton and his stepson got into such a heated row that the pilot was forced to land in Portugal and ordered them off the plane.

The family was escorted off the plane and Lee was questioned by police.

While the rest of his party later boarded another plane to Lanzarote, Lee was abandoned outside the airport police station where he spent almost 24 hours without food or water.

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He was finally taken in by embassy staff after he made a frantic phone call to his mum Jannine Bird, in London, who paid for him to fly home. Laughton, meanwhile, downplayed the incident which is believed to have cost the plane's carrier, Thomson, an estimated 35,000 pounds.

"We were 50 minutes from landing and Lee pulled his hood up and I pulled it down," the 'Daily Mirror' quoted Laughton as saying.

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"The next thing I knew he knew he had his arms around my neck and we ended up in the aisle. "When we got off in Porto he wouldn't take any money from me. As far as I knew he was with the police. Lee is 17 and lives on his own in London. This has been blown up out of proportion," the paper quoted him as saying.