Letsby,
It would appear, from the Newspaper article, that the initial request was turned down because there were "too many people around to make Thermal Imaging effective". That is actually in accordance with our own tasking criteria and I doubt that we would have attended under similar circumstances. The refusal of the subsequent request in the early hours does not make sense at all though.
If Lothian & Borders Police consider Air Support expensive, however, they may be about to find out just how expensive it can be not having it.