Man jailed over laser attack
05.01.09
A Teesside man who shone a laser into an aircraft, temporarily blinding the pilot, has been jailed for 4 months, whilst another man was given a suspended sentence for a similar offence carried out days later.
Ben Philip Vout, 19, and from Heslop Street in Thornaby, targeted a KLM flight coming in to land at Durham Tees Valley Airport with 40 passengers on board last August. He also shone the device at a police helicopter sent to investigate. Teesside Crown Court was told that the flight had to be landed by the co-pilot. He pleaded guilty to two charges of endangering the safety of an aircraft and was jailed for 4 months.
Peter Terence Allan, 22, of High Newham Road, Stockton, shone a similar laser device at another police helicopter over Stockton in a separate case on August 31. He was given a 3 month jail 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 said: ‘You and all the other lads have got to realise that this is so dangerously stupid it has got to stop.’
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