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walked through the cabin, she briefly sat next to the 46-year-old actor to talk before her break. According to Robertson, Fiennes asked if he could join her on the crew jump seats when she took her break, and she agreed. Once there the two chatted for about an hour before engaging in passionate physical foreplay. After ten minutes or so they locked themselves in the cabin toilet where, Robertson says, they had sex. Unfortunately for the flight attendant, a male staff member saw Fiennes and Robertson leaving the toilet separately and told the cabin manager, who sent her to work in the economy section for the remainder of the flight, advising Robertson that she intended to report her once they had returned to Sydney. That did not stop Robertson from later joining Fiennes in his Mumbai hotel suite.

Back in Sydney, Robertson was suspended without pay. At a meeting between Robertson, the Flight Attendants’ Association, Qantas and airline services contractor Morris Alexander Management, the company accused her of breaching Qantas corporate and cabin-crew policies. The first breach was allowing Fiennes to sit in the jump seat; the second being in the toilet with him. Initially Robertson filed a statement that downplayed the incident:

While conversing with Mr Fiennes during my break, I expressed a need to go to the toilet. I went to the nearby toilet and entered it, he followed me and entered the same toilet. I explained to him that this was inappropriate and asked him to leave. Mr Fiennes became amorous towards me and, after a short period of time, I convinced him to leave the toilet, which he did. I left the toilet a short time later. At no time did any crew member come to my assistance. At no time were any other customers aware of this incident. At no time did I put the Qantas name or reputation in jeopardy. 2

At the time of the hearing Robertson was correct in saying she had not put the Qantas name or reputation in jeopardy. But, on suspension without pay, she was struggling for money. In desperation she took her story to the Sunday Telegraph in Sydney, which put it on the front page. The Qantas hostie and the Hollywood star’s mile-high-club fling in a toilet at 35,000 feet dominated headlines around the world. A Qantas spokesman stiffly told the newspaper: ‘All we can do is confirm that a flight attendant was stood down following an onboard incident.’3 Although initially Fiennes remained silent, a week later his personal publicist, Sara Keene, came out fighting, claiming that Robertson had instigated the sexual encounter. It was all too much for Qantas, which sacked Robertson on Monday morning.

Having been suspended by Qantas, Robertson was so short of cash she turned to prostitution, working, she confessed to the Sunday Telegraph, one night a week at The Gateway Club under the name of Skye. But that was not the first time she had earned money as a prostitute. While subcontracted to work for Qantas by agency Jetconnect in New Zealand, she had taken another job at a brothel called The Pelican Club. Working under the name Kendall, she supplemented her $NZ29,000 hostess pay with $NZ600 a night from prostitution. When she moved to Sydney with Qantas she took her night-time activity to the high-class Stiletto brothel in Camperdown, which is owned by racing identity Eddie Hayson.

Before joining Qantas, Robertson had worked for the New South Wales police as an undercover policewoman. As a young police officer she had seen a fellow graduate accidentally shot by a colleague. It led to a lifelong battle with mental illness. Her 14 years with the police service exacerbated her depression and led to suicidal tendencies. ‘There came a period of time that I decided to take my own life. I took 200 pills and drank a couple of bottles of Dom Perignon – so I did it in style. My boyfriend at the time called me and I was incoherent. I remember cutting my arm and I remember my choice that night to die and I went to sleep dressed in the clothes I wanted to be buried in. I left notes to my mum and dad, my brothers and my dog and my parrot, who