An easyJet cabin crew member who stole tobacco worth more than £30,000 to help pay for a worsening cocaine addiction has avoided a prison sentence.
Manchester Crown Court heard that Lyren Maddix, 29, had worked for the airline for over eight years and was regarded as a “valued” member of staff.
Maddix was also active on TikTok, where he frequently posted videos showing himself in his airline uniform while on board holiday flights.
But in the early hours of January 28, 2025, a colleague at Manchester Airport, where Maddix was based, discovered that storage crates had been forced open.
The missing items were packets of Amber Leaf tobacco, which had been intended for sale to passengers during flights.
CCTV later identified Maddix as the person behind the theft, the court was told.
Airline managers subsequently learned that he had attended the airport on his day off wearing full uniform, using his security pass to access restricted areas and even board an aircraft.
Maddix was arrested at his home later the same day, where officers found two packets of tobacco.
Lyren Maddix, 29, (pictured) stole more than £30,000 worth of tobacco from Manchester Airport to fund his spiralling cocaine habit
Following his arrest, Maddix lost his job with easyJet and is now working at a Tesco supermarket
He subsequently lost his job with easyJet and is now working at a Tesco supermarket, the hearing was told.
In total, police discovered he had stolen tobacco 26 times between August 4, 2024 and January 28, 2025 worth a total of £30,082.
Maddix told police he sold the packages to a shop to pay off drug debt and buy more cocaine.
He initially ‘downplayed’ the number of times he had stolen from his employer but eventually admitted the extent of his crimes.
A judge said it was likely that Maddix was stealing ‘so frequently’ that he ‘lost count’, telling him that he ‘didn’t have your hand in the till for the odd £20 note’.
Having pleaded guilty to one count of theft by employee, Maddix this week walked free from court with a suspended prison sentence.
Betsy Hindle, defending, said Maddix had no previous convictions.
She said he ‘adored’ his job at easyJet and was a ‘valued member of staff’.
A judge said Maddix, 29, had narrowly avoided an immediate prison sentence over the wholescale thefts, telling him that he ‘didn’t have your hand in the till for the odd £20 note’
Ms Hindle said her client began struggling with mental ill-health and ‘wasn’t given the support he thought he should have been’.
Maddix, she added, started using drugs to cope, taking cocaine ‘on an almost daily basis’.
‘His habit became out of control and those drugs had to be paid for,’ she said, adding that Maddix ‘didn’t even realise how much he had taken’ when confronted about the stolen goods.
She added: ‘He was adamant he hadn’t taken that much, but he accepts now he certainly must have.’
Maddix has a ‘depressive disorder’ diagnosis and has previously tried to take his own life, Ms Hindle said.
She said he was enjoying his new job at Tesco, where bosses have ‘given him a lot more assistance than his previous employer’.
Recorder Ben Lawrence told Maddix he accepted he has ‘had some sort of mental health difficulties for a significant period of time’ and that he was at a ‘particular low point’ at the time of the offences.
But he added: ‘You didn’t have your hand in the till for the odd £20 note.
‘You stole a very significant amount of money over a very significant period of time – and you spent it primarily on drugs.’
He said Maddix was afforded a ‘high degree of trust… not just between employer and employee but as a member of cabin crew with identity documents which could get [him] into areas of the airport and aircraft that people ought not to go unless they had good reason’.
Recorder Lawrence said he believed Maddix had ‘good prospects of rehabilitation’.
That, along with a delay in sentencing and ‘reasonably strong mitigation’, meant he was ‘just about persuaded’ to suspend a prison sentence.
Maddix, of Northampton, was handed a sentence of a year and four months, suspended for two years.
He was ordered to complete 250 hours of unpaid work and ten rehabilitation activity requirement days, and pay costs of £300.
Following the hearing, a spokesman for the airline said: ‘We fully supported the police with this case and the individual hasn’t worked for easyJet since their arrest over 18 months ago.’
