Drunk tourist wrestled by airport police was told he could not have more booze

This is the shocking moment a drunk tourist was wrestled to the ground by armed airport police after being told he could not have any more booze.

The middle-aged holidaymaker from Australia, wearing shorts and a T-shirt had feasted on barbeque chicken which he washed down with beer while he waited from his flight from Phuket, Thailand, on September 22. But he became enraged when a waitress refused to serve him more alcohol as he was already "very drunk."

Stunned onlookers said the man stumbled out of the bar and started trying to fight other passengers who were waiting for their flights. Six armed officers arrived and reportedly tried to calm him down, but he only became more angry.

Footage shows the officers wrestling him to the ground and whacking him with their batons as they battled to subdue the man. The person who recorded the footage, also an Aussie, said: "I was really disappointed to see Australians or anyone for that matter behave in this way. He was extremely drunk at the bar, got cut off, and then proceeded to fight anyone who so much looked at him.

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"The Thai airport security couldn't restrain him. 'Unfortunately, I don't think anyone in the history of being told to calm down, has ever calmed down. He was eventually restrained and held in the bathroom corridor where he just tormented anyone who walked past.

"When he was on the bench in handcuffs, he would start on anyone who made eye contact. I said to him 'you're a flop, and an embarrassment'. He didn't like that Hopefully, he spent a night in a Thai prison as a wake up call."

Airport staff said today that the tourist had been held in a cell at the airport while he sobered up. He missed his flight and was forced to rebook another plane. A spokesman for the Phuket International Airport said the situation had been resolved.

They added: "The holidaymaker in the video was very drunk and aggressive. Police captured him at Gate 11. He was detained until he was sober and then the situation was resolved. I can't give details of what happened between him and the police."

Beach-and-bar destination Phuket, an island in the south of Thailand, has become one of the popular holiday outposts for Aussies after Bali in Indonesia. But for Western tourists, the intoxicating combination of cheap food, beer, freely available drugs and a relaxed atmosphere compared with home often leads to chaos.

Just a few days later on the same island, a German tourist was arrested for a drunken rampage that saw him attack a pizza restaurant. In Phuket in May, British tourist Luke Alexander Graham, 31, from Bury, Greater Manchester, was caught on camera attacking a taxi driver in a row over the fare. He refused to apologise and was remanded in custody.

While in February in Phuket, a group of British tourists threw a party with five ladyboys that spiralled into chaos - with neighbours complaining it was "like World War Three".