‘BIG KID’ FORMER SOLDIER WHO LAUNCHED DRONES FROM HIS SUBURBAN DOORSTEP
EVERY Sunday afternoon Paul Gait would stand on his doorstep working the controls of a drone that whizzed above his suburban cul-de-sac.
Few of his neighbours took much notice. ‘That was just Paul, a big kid, really,’ said one. Before drones it was helicopters and before that it was remote-controlled cars.
While some might have considered his drone hobby a little antisocial, both Paul, a double-glazing fitter, and his wife Elaine, were popular in their home town of Crawley, West Sussex, five miles from Gatwick.
Neighbours regarded them as solidly dependable and communityminded. Yesterday, plenty expressed the view that police had simply got the wrong couple, with some suggesting that the pressure to get results had led to hasty arrests.
Neighbour Bob Simpkin, 74, saw Mr Gait being carted away in a van by police late on Friday night.
‘Suddenly I heard screaming and shouting. I went out to see what was going on, and I saw a man being taken away,’ he said.
‘I thought it was rowdy behaviour from youngsters. Not in a million years could I have imagined what it was really about.’
The couple were still being questioned last night over the drone that brought Gatwick to a standstill. An incident which – mainly for the way it exposed Ministers’ and officials’ failings – stunned a nation and ruined Christmas for more than 140,000 air passengers.
At their Kent home last night, Mr Gait’s parents, who are in their 70s, watched in sheer disbelief the 6pm TV news, which included film of their son’s home being searched.
Close to tears, his father, who asked not to be named, slowly shook his head. Beside him his wife, wideeyed, pressed her hand over her mouth. She said: ‘ We’re in total shock. We can’t believe it.’
The couple had just learned that it was t heir s on who had been arrested. Glancing at her husband she said: ‘I was just cooking dinner, but now I don’t suppose you want it, do you? ’
‘No, I don’t feel like eating,’ he replied.
Slowly, he told us that his son joined the Army straight from school.
A gunner in the Royal Artillery, he did two tours of Northern Ireland and a stint in Bosnia during the war in the early 1990s.
‘ He was brave and served his country, and always did as he was asked,’ his father said.
‘There is no way he would ever put anyone’s life in danger.’
After leaving the Army, Mr Gait worked as a security guard for the council in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, where he monitored the town’s CCTV cameras.
If he witnessed suspicious or any anti-social behaviour, his job was to alert Kent Police.
Mr Gait now works for a doubleglazing company, Allard Windows, in Crowborough, East Sussex.
His Facebook profile depicts him as an easy-going, hands-on dad who likes tinkering with toy planes.
He lists ‘radio-controlled flying’ as one of his interests and ‘planes’
‘We’re in total shock – we can’t believe it’
as another. Two years ago, he reviewed drone company Vifly on Facebook, noting that ‘the quality of the kits are amazing’ and ‘I look forward to dealing with them in the new year.’
His father insisted that his son would simply not have had time to carry out the Gatwick attacks because he was at work all week.
‘And it has been said eco-warriors might be behind it – but he’s no eco- warrior,’ he added. ‘He likes to fish and he likes his meat. Everyone is phoning me up and saying, “It can’t be him. That’s not Paul.”
‘He has never been in trouble. He had a big model helicopter but he sold that a couple of years ago. He has had small drones. Somebody has pointed the finger at him and said, “He likes to fly drones”. But Paul wouldn’t do something like this.’
Others painted a similar portrait. As well as being his boss, Gemma Allard had an eight-year relationship with Mr Gait and is the mother of his 15-year-old son.
She said: ‘Our son is worried but I’ve told him we’ll see his dad for Christmas.
‘ When it [ t he drone at t ack] started, Paul was sitting in my front room in Crowborough having a cup of tea, and the rest of the day he was working at my clients’ houses. So he was not even near Gatwick – he was 17 miles away.
‘I know what they [the police] are doing – they are trying to do something to please the public, but they have got the wrong man, and they need to let him out and catch the people behind this.
‘He is not a drone enthusiast, he is a model aircraft enthusiast. He had a drone, but he has not got a drone at present, and he was that far away.
The police don’t want to hear it because then they’ll have hard evidence [that he didn’t do it] and they don’t want to release him. They want to keep the public happy.’
She suspects that someone ‘with a bone to pick with him’ maliciously tipped off police about him having a drone.
Others defended Mr Gait’s wife Elaine, whom he married in 2013. She has worked in sales for Uni- lever for the past 20 years. Her exhusband Ian Kirk said: ‘There is no way that Elaine could do this. She hates drones and she cannot even operate them.’
A former Unilever colleague added: ‘She’s a sweet, quiet lady who has a son who she adores. I can’t see her being involved.’
Sussex Police confirmed last night that they had arrested two people ‘on suspicion of disrupting services of civil aviation aerodrome to endanger or likely to endanger safety of operations or persons’, which carries a maximum life sentence.
The law was used to convict businessman Shaun Lees who ‘snapped’ after a row with the boss of Coventry Airport weeks after 9/11 and flew a hired helicopter up to the air traffic control tower.
He was jailed for three years, cut to two on appeal.