Interesting story - well done, Say Again!
As a fairly frequent sender of the General Aviation Report Forms, I know that police forces all over the UK have different ideas as to how the Act is to be applied in practice. Most seem to believe that some form of "permission" must be obtained from them. I don't know how a visitor to these islands from some other part of Europe is supposed to cope with the lack of uniformity and sheer awkwardness of the decentralised system.
The first issue that the foreign visitor is faced with is who to send the GAR form to? The fax numbers on the commonly-used form are mostly obsolete. Guides such as Pooleys don't tell you which police force covers each airfield. Usually it takes at least several phone calls to identify a person or number to send the form to - then the number doesn't work or is engaged. Even after you succeed in sending it, it seems to frequently be the case that Officer X, who is responsible for this in his force, doesn't actually get the form. So if you're challenged you'd better have proof that your fax/email was sent to a relevant number. Then eventually when you have got someone to deal with, and make the same flight again 6 months later, he/she has been ressigned and you have the same palaver all over again.
I too have been subjected to long delays after arriving at non-TA designated airfields while the police check up my "story" that I did send them the GAR form 12 hours earlier.
I too have also been refused permission to leave a TA designated airport (not Newcastle!) without giving 12 hours notice.
One midlands police force's website - I cant find it tonight - says that it wants
all flights arriving into its area from outside the UK to give 12 hours GAR form notice; this would include private flights from say France, which are not covered by the Act as quoted above.
Many police forces appear to believe emphatically that their explicit permission is required to fly privately to/from a non-TA designated GB airfield. In practice for my one-off flights I just have to humour them - educating the police can only lead to a pyrrhic victory at best.
If all this nonsense was conferring some obvious security benefit for the UK it would be easier to understand. The logic (if any) of why a flight from Alderney or IoM to England should require more scrutiny than one from Cherbourg escapes me entirely..........
