Man jailed for Durham Tees Valley flight laser attack
05.01.09
A Teesside man who shone a laser pen into an aircraft, temporarily blinding the pilot, has been jailed for four months, whilst another man was given a suspended sentence for a similar offence carried out just days later.
Ben Philip Vout targeted a KLM flight coming in to land at Durham Tees Valley Airport with 40 passengers last August. He also shone the device at a police helicopter sent to investigate. Teesside Crown Court was told that the KLM flight had to be landed by the co-pilot. Vout, 19, and from Heslop Street in Thornaby pleaded guilty to two charges of endangering the safety of an aircraft.
Peter Terence Allan, 22, of High Newham Road, Stockton, shone a similar pen at another police helicopter over Stockton in a separate case days later on August 31. He was given a three-month sentence, but this was suspended for two years with 100 hours’ unpaid work because no pilot was dazzled by the beam of light.
Sentencing the men, Judge Peter Fox QC, the Recorder of Middlesbrough, said: ‘You and all the other lads have got to realise that this is so dangerously stupid it’s got to stop.’
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