I cannot profess to know any more than you do about this case but the problem we now have is that since Sept 11th everyone is guilty until proven innocent. The flightcrew now only get information by ‘chinese whispers’ relayed from the cabin crew. This will tainted by their own interpretation which may have been the case here. In my opinion the pilots acted 100% correctly but don’t know enough about the cabin situation to comment on what happened here.

Even if this is a genuine over reaction I think you’ll find that all the other airlines are extremely happy that this situation happened as it has sent an important message to the travelling public about policing of behaviour onboard commercial aircraft.