Two yobs who prevented an air ambulance from taking a dying man to hospital by dazzling the pilot with a laser pen walked free today.Well, of course they did! FFS!
Alex Cox and Luke Fortune, both 21, directed the green laser at the helicopter as the pilot desperately attempted to reach the critically-ill heart patient.And why aren’t they charged with manslaughter?
But after three attempts, the pilot had to give up and return to base in Devizes, Wiltshire.
The tragic pensioner, in his late 70s, had to be driven to hospital in a road ambulance but died en route.
Well…
It was unlikely the helicopter would have saved the man who had suffered a cardiac arrest, the ambulance service said.It didn’t help, though, did it? Particularly the delay.
Cox and Fortune pleaded guilty to directing or shining a light at an aircraft in flight so as to dazzle or distract the pilot - but walked free from court with a conditional discharge.*sigh*
Magistrate Felicity Dowell told them: 'This was a very stupid, thoughtless thing to do.Does it get more serious than ‘dead’? Not for the patient!
'I am sure that you did not do it to make the helicopter crash but it would have had that effect.
'You are very lucky it wasn’t very serious.'
'One of you plays rugby - imagine if you were lying on the field with a broken leg waiting for the air ambulance and someone did the same thing. 'That, love, would be karma. Just as it would be if you were awaiting that vital helicopter assistance…
That really is a remarkably light sentence even by current standards. Set aside the fact it was an air ambulance, and surely it's still deliberately endangering the safety of an aircraft.
ReplyDeleteMagistrate Felicity Dowell told them: "I am sure that you did not do it to make the helicopter crash .."
ReplyDeleteSo what exactly does this numbskull fondly imagine their motive was ?
Does she think that perhaps they just wanted to say Hello to the pilot & this was their only way of attracting his attention ?
Does she believe they were both simply desperate for a free helicopter ride ?
Not only were the Aircrew put at serious risk but so was anyone in the immediate vicinity of, or beneath the Helo (essentially an airborne paraffin tank) ..
They should both be serving long sentences as a deterrent to other loons with Laser pens ..
God preserve us from bleeding hearts & bloody idiots ..
Not serious? Felicity Dowell is clearly too senile and ignorant to understand how serious it was.
ReplyDeleteHelicopters do not stay up by magic; it takes physics and skill and a huge amount of money. The money is raised publicly, voluntarily, so the cost-per-hour can be calculated precisely.
Devon and Cornwall police, for example, quote their helicopter at:
The all inclusive cost is £1675 per hour, this includes everything including fuel, staff and insurance.
The air ambulance is probably near that figure. To fly out of Devizes and back again will have burned a minimum of about £2k, and that wasted hour is another hour on the log which brings the next service nearer.
Plus, while it was trying to get down to save one person, it wasn't available for another.
Captain Haddock has made the other points about the gibbering idiocy of trying to crash a helicopter, and that's what it should have been tried as - endangering an aircraft.
If you would like to help with Air Ambulances, please consider signing the petition to make VAT recoverable by the charity. At the moment we are paying taxes to save our own lives.
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/29349
Attempted murder anyone?
ReplyDeleteThey were lucky not to be sent down- ambulance or not, the courts are supposed to take this sort of thing seriously.
ReplyDeleteSee here for a Court of Appeal judgement:
http://thelawwestofealingbroadway.blogspot.co.uk/2008/09/collective-responsibility.html
See also here
http://flightlevel390.blogspot.co.uk/2008/08/madrid-crash.html
which is about an unrelated issue, but has a question about laser idiocy at 5:03 AM, September 08, 2008, followed by an answer from Dave, the pilot who writes that blog.
Of course they wanted it to crash. they wanted to see one of those spectacular Hollywood crashes complete with fireball. Why else would anyone do it? To test whether the pen works?
ReplyDeleteThis is is the sort of peasant/chav crime that will have dire consequences one day. My plan would be that if anyone is found guilty of using such a device anywhere, air or land or sea, it is ten years in solitary to consider one's actions.
But of course, that won't happen. So, until the next disaster...
"very lucky it wasn’t very serious"
ReplyDeletesomebody died because of their actions.How can she say a death isn't serious?
"imagine if you were blah blah blah"
No.They don't have to imagine anything.They just have to be reminded that they killed a man.
Its not even a good analogy.A broken leg to a 20-odd year old is not the same threat as a heart attack to a 70year old.
All of these bullsh!t verdicts should be paraphrased as thus :
The only spaces in our overcrowded prisons are reserved for political dissenters.Smoke a fag on council property,turn a blind eye to smoking in your pub,Refuse to pay your poll tax/tv licence,point a finger at well connected kiddy fiddlers and we'll find a bed for you.Anything else,carry on chavving.
Bring back the stocks and the birch.
ReplyDeleteJail is too expensive. We should bring back public flogging. It would raise money: a fiver to watch and for fifty quid you can deliver a lash yourself.
ReplyDelete"That really is a remarkably light sentence even by current standards. "
ReplyDeleteIndeed.
As pointed out by others here, and in the comments to the piece, similar assaults on police helicopters have drawn much harsher punishment, quite rightly.
"So what exactly does this numbskull fondly imagine their motive was ?"
Good point.
"...and that's what it should have been tried as - endangering an aircraft."
Another fine job by the CPS...?
"...the courts are supposed to take this sort of thing seriously."
ReplyDeleteIndeed, but as WoaR points out, that depends on what they are charged with...
"This is is the sort of peasant/chav crime that will have dire consequences one day."
I think it's only pure luck (and superb flying skills) that has ensured it hasn't happened yet.
"The only spaces in our overcrowded prisons are reserved for political dissenters."
Plus the brand spanking new offence of 'saying hurtful things on the Internet'.
"We should bring back public flogging. It would raise money: a fiver to watch and for fifty quid you can deliver a lash yourself."
I'll start saving now!
Is it not the case that absurdly lenient sentencing can now be appealed? This incident would seem to be an obvious candidate.
ReplyDeleteBlinding a pilot is endangering an aircraft in the most profound way. Orville Wright would have known that. That is an appalling crime regardless of the man who died. That just ices the cake. By which I mean an appalling crime if they'd been on a routine shake-down flight or whatever and not on an emergency "hop".
ReplyDeleteWe live in an age where we all have to go through indignities at the airport because of terrorism. Forget shoe-bombs AQ! Just dazzle pilots - you'll get away with it!
I was turned down by the RAF University Air Squadron because of my eyesight (which isn't that bad - 20 years later I still don't wear specs or anything). That is how important vision is to a pilot. That is how endangered that aircraft was.
"Is it not the case that absurdly lenient sentencing can now be appealed? This incident would seem to be an obvious candidate."
ReplyDeleteIt certainly would! I wonder if it's being considered?
"We live in an age where we all have to go through indignities at the airport because of terrorism. Forget shoe-bombs AQ! Just dazzle pilots - you'll get away with it! "
I think we have had a few cases of small to medium aircraft reporting these episodes already, haven't we?