Perhaps if Air Marshall’s Wratten and Day had been on the jury we’d have a different result.
My emotional response is that the verdict is wrong. Andy Hill is responsible for these deaths and that most were entirely innocent bystanders makes one bay for blood. But the law is rightly about facts and not emotions.
Having been a small part of the campaign to clear the Chinook pilots one has to look at why the result is what it is.
I’d say the prosecution lost this case rather than the defence winning it. If it’s true that the AAIB report was not used in the prosecution case one has to ask ‘why not?’
Was there a lesser, more proveable, charge which could have been brought? I don’t know. Over to the lawyers.
The charge is is all important. A young man some years ago managed to blag his way into flying a commercial helicopter with only a PPL and no type rating. The CAA prosecuted under the charge of ‘Obtaining pecunery advantage by deception’.
He was never paid, so the case collapsed. An easy day in court for our own ‘Flying Lawyer’.
And no! It wasn’t me.