And another one bites the dust
Jail for student who 'blinded' pilot
14 July 2009
By Jeni Harvey
A POLICE helicopter pilot was left flying blind after he was dazzled by a laser beam as he flew over a South Yorkshire suburb.
And now bakery student Majid Khan, 24, has been jailed after he was captured on film aiming a powerful laser pen at the aircraft.
Sheffield Crown Court was told that Khan, a convicted robber from the Sharrow area of Sheffield, flooded the cockpit with green light, dazzling the co-pilot and preventing the pilot from reading the controls. Judge Robert Lawler QC told him the offence was so serious only an immediate custodial sentence could be passed.
Jailing him for six months, he told Khan: "These matters are serious and there is potential danger when aircraft are operating overhead in populated areas.
"For some reason you thought it was 'cool' to do what you did."
After being dazzled by the laser pen, the airborne officers used thermal-imaging equipment to trace Khan.
He was then arrested by officers near his home. When they told him they had recorded him on CCTV shining the pen at the helicopter, he agreed his house could be searched and, once inside, handed over the laser.
He later admitted recklessly endangering an aircraft.
Khan was jailed for four years in 2006 after he cruised around Sheffield in a car looking for victims to threaten with a baseball bat. He was on licence from jail when he committed the laser offence last November.
Yorkshire Post