Five years jail as law gets tough on laser pen menace
PEOPLE who shine lasers at planes, trains, buses and ships could be jailed for up to five years under new laws.
Offenders will also face unlimited fines as part of government measures to boost safety.
Commonly-available laser pens can cause eye damage and in some cases render people temporarily blind.
Existing legislation means someone found guilty of simply shining a laser at an aircraft faces a maximum fine of just £2,500.
More serious punishments require it to be established that the aircraft was deliberately endangered.
The new Laser Misuse (Vehicles) Bill, published today, will make it easier to prosecute offenders by removing the need to prove they intended to put a plane at risk.
It also expands the types of transport which are covered to include trains, buses, boats and hovercraft.
It will be an offence to deliberately dazzle or distract the operator of a vehicle or not to take reasonable precautions to avoid doing so.
Aviation minister Baroness Sugg said laser misuse can have “fatal consequences”.
“The Government is determined to protect pilots, captains, drivers and their passengers and take action against those who threaten their safety,” she added.
Laser pens have been a growing concern in the aviation sector in recent years as pilots have been targeted by the beams.
The first laser attack on an aircraft was reported in 2004 and since 2011 there have been around 1,500 incidents in the UK each year.
Some 1,250 were reported in 2016, with attacks at Heathrow rising by a quarter year-on-year to 151.
In March this year, Steven Baxter, 33, of Bromborough, Merseyside, was jailed for eight months after admitting endangering aircraft by shining a laser pen in the direction of two planes and a police helicopter.
Father-of-seven Neil Stephen Wright, 35, from Leicester, was jailed for five months after admitting endangering an aircraft by shining a laser pen at a police helicopter in October.
Police and aviation union chiefs last night welcomed the crackdown by the Department for Transport.
National Police Chiefs’ Council expert Commander Simon Bray said shining a laser at an aircraft or another moving vehicle is “deeply irresponsible and dangerous”.
He added: “Laser attacks can lead to catastrophic incidents.
“These new and robust measures send a clear message to perpetrators: laser attacks are a crime and serious consequences will follow from committing this offence.”
Brian Strutton, general secretary of pilots’ union Balpa, said: “The Government’s announcement of a Bill to tackle the misuse of lasers is very welcome and we will work to ensure its effective and speedy implementation.”
PENALTIES for shining a laser at air, ground and sea vehicles are to be sharply increased and not before time. This increasingly pernicious crime is risking an accident and loss of life on a large scale; if it isn’t stamped on now we are going to see a tragedy prompted either by terrorists or reckless idiots with no thought for the people they are putting at risk.
We live in increasingly dangerous and volatile times and the authorities are having to react now to threats that simply weren’t even there a few years before.
Laser misuse is just one of those areas, a very worrying development for all of us. A jail sentence is the very least the perpetrators should expect.