Front page of the local borough's newspaper, Eastendlife, more news from Snaresbrook Crown Court about green laser pointers (including snippet at end about a successful appeal from the aforementioned):
Tower Hamlets News:
Laser put police chopper in peril
21/04/08
Shalina Hussain
THE aircrew of a police helicopter were forced to send out a distress call after two yobs shone a blinding laser pen into their cockpit.
Ifikitar Hussain, 21, and Dulal Miah, 19, repeatedly flashed strobes of luminous green light at the aircraft as it hovered over Whitechapel.
Snaresbrook Crown Court was shown footage of Hussain and charity worker Miah from the helicopter’s thermal imaging camera as they ran through the streets of Whitechapel pointing the pen skyward.
The court heard on April 15 how a police helicopter was on night patrol over the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel Road, on January 12 this year, when Hussain and Miah shone the laser.
During the video recording the aircrew from the helicopter can be heard sending the distress call to squad cars on the ground.
The police airmen asked officers to deal with Hussain and Miah while the helicopter was manoeuvred away from the laser beam, but still continued to track the duo from the sky to help with their capture.
When Hussain and Miah were cornered by squad cars, one of the pair tossed the laser pen over a fence into a grassed area before they were arrested.
Hussain and Miah of Trahorn Close, Whitechapel admitted recklessly acting in a manner likely to endanger an aircraft or any person therein.
Judge Tudor Owen said he wanted to hear from the pilot how much danger the aircraft was in and adjourned sentencing until May 12. But he warned both defendants that they could be jailed.
Hussain and Miah were both remanded on conditional bail and ordered to comply with night-time curfews.
The case comes just weeks after city banker Aldous Voice was given a custodial sentence, which was later quashed, for flashing a high-powered torch at a helicopter which could have caused it to crash.
Voice, 31, admitted shining the five-million-candle lamp from his kitchen window as the aircraft came in to land on top of a building in the Isle of Dogs on October 24, 2006.