TOWIE star Billie Faiers has expressed her fury after seeing a total stranger slap her son as they jetted back from a family holiday in Dubai.
The mum-of two to Nelly, seven, and five-year-old Arthur, were flying back off holiday with her children and husband Greg Shepherd when she faced every parent's worst nightmare, a tantrum on a plane thousands of feet up in the air.
A direct flight from Dubai to London can take up to nine hours and during the journey Arthur had been struggling on the plane for an unknown reason, so in the hope of soothing her then three-year-old son, Billie propped Arthur up on her lap as she tried to calm him down. But instead of calming down, he ended up kicking the back of the seat in front of him and despite Billie having apologised to the woman, the woman resorted to smacking Arthur as punishment.
And as a parent whose child has just been smacked by a total stranger, how should you react?
Speaking on her Sam & Billie Show podcast, Billie, who has since confirmed her third pregnancy, recalled the horrifying incident to her sister Sam. She said, "We were on the way back from Dubai, and there was a family that were sat in front of us and Arthur was kicking off a bit - as kids do sometimes.
She continued, "Don't get me wrong, this is really annoying, but he had kicked the back of the woman's chair. He was on my lap and I was trying to calm him down. I said to her 'I'm so sorry', and that was it.
"Then he was having a bit of a tantrum and he was crying. Well, the woman turned around in her seat and she smacked him. She smacked him on his arm and then I saw red. When I mean I kicked off - I was livid."
Billie explained how she complained to staff after the attack as she stood up and confronted the passenger for hitting her son Arthur.
"Obviously, everyone was looking because I was going absolutely mental. I was so angry. And then Greg was half-asleep at one of the rows in the front and he was wondering what the hell was going on. But this woman - I think she was German. So, there must have been a language barrier. But at the end of the day, she literally hit my child. She didn't hurt him, but she smacked him. I was honestly in such shock - I was furious."
Billie Faiers revealed that the woman had been travelling with her own children and after the incident they all hid under blankets. "You could tell her kids were really embarrassed. I felt a bit sorry for them," she added.
She finished off her travel horror story by revealing that she never received an apology from the woman on the plane.
Supernanny Jo Frost shows parents how to deal with an epic tantrum in public in this video clip below...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrWSjbnh44k
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