Misterbonkers story is pretty much the sort of reaction you would expect from the CAA in a case like this. I am not 100% sure, but I think it got a fairly cool reception from some parts of the Police too. Which is why STANDTO's original post was interesting because it was a rather different response from a different part of the Police community.
Not sure about the "deemed to be commercial work" though. The CAA would surely have to prove it was public transport as defined in the ANO - without "valuable consideration" I can't see how they could make it stick.