If the CAA is going to be so cavalier in their language describing the law that they are supposed to uphold, surely they can't be surprised when others interpret the law with similar approximations
Do you think the CAA misrepresented this stuff in the court by e.g. saying that someone took off from an A/G airfield without a TO clearance?
Admittedly the last time I was in a court was 1985 (carelessly driving an XR3i
) but the prosecution lied about a number of things which would have been fairly easy to sort out (technically if perhaps not without a lot of hassle) . Yet it was obviously quite difficult to extract oneself from that situation after you pleaded guilty. There is nowadays a thing called Newton hearing which can be used in such a situation but it needs a defendant who is fairly determined to get justice and not just buy himself peace by using a cheap (stupid) solicitor and writing a cheque which is what most businessmen are happy to do (and that is also what keeps HMRC in the money these days). For example I was accused of doing 90+mph in a street which was not long enough to reach 90 by a factor of several times but proving so would be expensive (they initially told my solicitor they would be doing me for 60 in a 30 and I spent some weeks trying to find an expert witness from Ford, without success) so I gave up and on the day the figure went up from 60 to 90 and I got done for 90 in a 30. In the goode olde pre-CPS days, the police did this quite often if they didn't like somebody.