Man charged with shining a laser on helicopter is bailed
A MAN who allegedly shone a laser at a police driver and a helicopter pilot was freed on bail yesterday.
Freeing 27-year-old Sean McKenna at Lisburn Magistrates Court, District Judge Rosie Watters warned him: “Don’t go anywhere near lasers and don’t do anything stupid.”
Earlier McKenna, from the Kilwilkie Road in Lurgan, confirmed he understood the four charges against him accusing him of shining a light to dazzle or distract a pilot, endangering the safety of an aircraft, causing dangers to road users by using laser light and disorderly behaviour, all allegedly committed on February 9.
Giving evidence to the court a police officer said she believed she could connect McKenna to each of the offences, adding that police were opposed to him being freed because “there could have been extremely different consequences”.
Outlining the facts she said that at 6.30pm on Saturday, a police patrol on the Kilwilkie Road had a laser shone on one of their teams.
At 6.45pm a police helicopter which was providing cover over the area said there was a green laser shone at the aircraft.
She said that a suspect wearing a black jacket with a reflective stripe on it was spotted and officers said that he seemed to throw something away and when he fell on a grass area, he dropped something which was a mobile phone which police seized.
The court heard that McKenna was arrested at a house where the people didn’t know him, but they brought him in because he was claiming to have an asthma attack.
While the officer claimed McKenna had made full admissions during interviews, his bar- rister said his instructing solicitor was with the defendant during interview and he had said “it might be me”.
The lawyer said McKenna had co-operated fully and at the time of the incident had been “extremely drunk”.
He added that he had a limited record, was the sole carer for his elderly mother and carried out all the chores around the house.
Freeing McKenna on his own bail of £500 along with a £500 surety, Judge Waters said that by doing something as drastic as this he “could have caused all sorts of injuries not only to the drivers and the helicopter but also to road users”.
“It was a really reckless thing to do,” she told McKenna.
“I just don’t know what your thought process was.
“Don’t go anywhere near lasers and don’t do anything stupid.”
Amongst McKenna’s bail conditions are a curfew from 8pm to 7am and a ban on consuming alcohol or entering licensed premises.
He is also not to be in possession of any laser.
McKenna will appear again at Craigavon Magistrates Court on March 6.