Rokami93, by your comments and general attitude I take it that you have never been on the receiving end of a laser illumination. As for making this dumb kid a criminal, I believe that he was one already. If he had admitted the offence and did not have a criminal background then he would have been entitled to a caution. His 'background' is taken into account as is the nature of the offence such as was it a single ilumination or a sustained one. I don't know many helicopters that travel at 230kts so you must be referring to airplanes. Most airplanes are hit on final approach when there speed is relatively low, their airframe ''dirty' and their glidepath predictable. They are hit at a time when they at a critical stage of flight, with very few options! The people that target Police helicopters do not give a quick 1/1000 of a second sweep, that is just the attention getter, they continue to target the cockpit. The effects of sunlight on a scratched or dirty canopy is very different from that of a laser. Laser illuminations tend to happen at night where the laser will saturate the receptors of the eye and obscure the background detail (limited though that information is anyway). Sunlight does not refract around the cockpit like shards of glass as lasers do. When we are illuminated or called to an area where illuminations are reported we assess the risk to ourselves. I have made decision in the past to not attempt to apprehend the perpetrators because the risk to ourselves was too great (low cloud/viz, local hazards and geography of the area). By your arguement firemen should never go into burning buildings to rescue people because they are at risk! This issue has been highlighted in the press and other media to inform people of the dangers they are imposing on others by their actions. Anyone who ignores such information is only portraying themselves as a danger to others. Please remember also that the reckless endangement of an aircraft is an offence.