A man has been jailed for 18 months for endangering aircraft after shining a powerful torch at RAF jets flying training missions over his island home.
John Arthur Jones, a former council housing director, was so upset by the roar of the jets flying over his land in Anglesey, north Wales, that he took to aiming the beam at pilots. The lights were “dangerously distracting” and sometimes pilots of Hawk jets who were being trained for combat had to abort landings.
Jones was described in court by his defence barrister, Lisa Judge, as a Victor Meldrew type – after the grumpy One Foot in the Grave character. But judge Geraint Walters told him he was arrogant and could have caused serious harm.
Jailing him at Mold crown court, the judge said: “You possess an abundance of self-belief in your own ability to achieve things, which transcends all reason and which is born out of profound arrogance. The consequences could have been devastating. Your conduct became a campaign over a long period of time.”
Jones, 66, denied 13 charges of endangering aircraft between November 2013 and September 2014 but a jury found him guilty.
Instructors and pilots told the court how a sudden flash of light in the cockpit could be disastrous. The jury heard they were being trained at Mona airfield on the island for “touch and go” landings in readiness for conflict.
While doing vital checks before landing, sudden lights were disorientating and landings were often abandoned, they said. The jury heard how it took time for pilots’ vision to adjust in the dark and once a cockpit was illuminated it could take 20 minutes or more for them to regain perfect vision.
That could lead to a dangerous situation where a disorientated pilot might not believe his instruments and could lead to a crash, the court heard.
The RAF alerted the police. On one occasion a police helicopter was launched and a night vision camera caught a person on the veranda at Jones’s home with a light. Undercover officers were sent in and caught him shining a light at a jet.
In interview, Jones alleged pilots were deliberately harassing him by flying over his property. He claimed that he would simply go out to inspect his property with a torch and on one occasion he may have instinctively shone his torch up as a jet passed by but it was not deliberate.
John Philpotts, prosecuting, told the jury: “The defendant endangered aircraft and their pilots by shining a bright light into the cockpits of Hawk jets as they prepared to land. He became displeased by the aviation activity in the skies near his land.”
Philpotts told the court Jones was so annoyed that he threatened at one point to fly a weather balloon above his land to obstruct the jets but did not carry out the idea. “It is the prosecution case that he became obsessed with the activity of the aircraft,” Philpotts added.
Jones was a “man on a mission”, the prosecution claimed, and kept detailed notes about flights, temperatures, wind direction and speed.
Philpotts said Jones’ actions posed a danger to pilots and to motorists if a plane had crashed. “We are all horrifically familiar with the events at Shoreham,” he added, referring to the 2015 Sussex disaster when an air show stunt when wrong and a plane crashed on to a road, killing 11 people.
The prosecutor said there had been disruption to military training. Some night time training had to be rescheduled and Philpotts said any delays could have an effect on frontline troops.
Jones had denied that he had a vendetta against the RAF because the jet noise had destroyed his plans to build luxury holiday lodges. But the judge said he believed he had blamed the RAF for blighting his business scheme.
Jones has now put his home on the market.
