Timothy wrote:
It would be interesting to see the basis of your calculation.
You wrote “about £300 for a simple magistrates court trial”. According to Wikipedia, magistrates court have three lay judges. I expect that even for a very simple case each judge must spend at least 1 hour on preparation, the hearing and making the decision. Then there must be some clerk to take records and write out the verdict. The prosecutor must have spent several hours preparing the case. So I can’t imagine the government having spent less then 10 man-hours on the case, all of which have to be paid for. Then there are the inevitable administrative overheads. So even for a very simple case £300 seems to be on the low side
Timothy wrote:
“The principle in the UK is that the guilty defendant pays, or pays towards, the costs of bringing a prosecution.
In the case of CPS and Police, this is generally not calculated for each case, but is according to a scale: £85-£100 for an early guilty plea, about £300 for a simple magistrates court trial etc.”
Did he mean England when he wrote UK? What have the CPS and the Police to do with court prosecutions? 
So even for a very simple case £300 seems to be on the low side
Sure; a Mags court case must cost much more than that in salaries, fixed costs (premises, light, heat, cleaning, etc).
Mags courts are used mostly for low level “criminal” stuff. The bigger stuff goes to the County courts. All of the overheads of these must be heavily subsidised.
The number of suspensions caused by “additional infringements having previously attended the course” is interesting.
Either the pilot really couldn’t care less, or they were deeply incompetent beyond hope, or it’s more evidence that the UK airspace system remains completely unfit for purpose
Let me pick up the above point posted earlier, since it misses a key point.
There is a 4th reason why a pilot might “infringe” twice within 2 years (as e.g. I have done): he/she flies a plane, and flies a lot of hours! If you do 100/150hrs a year, and a lot of it in UK Class G, you are doing roughly 5x to 10x UK/European PPL average and likely flying well out of the local burger run comfort zone. You are likely to infringe just because you fly, and got distracted very briefly.
Flying within the maze of ATZs, DAs, 2500ft CAS base, etc, there is no way to ensure 100% this cannot happen for 2 years while having one’s transponder turned on. It is a bit like not exceeding 30mph for 2 years. So with NATS and CAA very obviously having me in their sights (on one UK GA beat them up site which is full of NATS staff, one senior NATS guy labelled me a serial infringer with anti authority attitude… my GF was seriously impressed ), I have stopped sightseeing flights in the south east UK. For A-B, mostly I now fly abroad. I have completely stopped the “2300ft LTMA stuff” which is a total hostage to fortune in the new CAA regime.
I feel sorry for those currently doing their PPLs…
Peter wrote:
You are likely to infringe just because you fly, and got distracted very briefly.
But your high amount of flying should also provide you a lot of experience and currency. I expect your know your aircraft and its systems very well. So by example you would know how the autopilot reacts on a thermal day, you could use that knowledge to have margin sufficient to prevent brief distraction becoming infringement.
Peter wrote:
What kind of proportion between warning letter and Gasco course would you consider fair?It isn’t simply that – because the said proportion varies according to the amount of sunlight (literally).
Then what kind of proportion for spring, summer, automn, winter would you consider fair?
It should not be a “proportion”.
To allocate a fixed proportion is what happens with school exams. For political correctness reasons, you cannot have too many (in any given year) failing to get any grade, so you look at the overall data and adjust the pass mark so that say 10% get A, 10% get a fail, and the rest will be located on a distribution which isn’t going to create newspaper headlines and too many “failing schools”
For criminal offences, one needs a system which looks at what happened, how much it was premeditated/deliberate/etc, and allocate punishment according to a clear and published scale.
Xtophe wrote:
But your high amount of flying should also provide you a lot of experience and currency. I expect your know your aircraft and its systems very well. So by example you would know how the autopilot reacts on a thermal day, you could use that knowledge to have margin sufficient to prevent brief distraction becoming infringement.
I doubt that when the underlying is airspace design is flawed (MSA = CTA) or congested airspace, few of us are wired for 3D, especially the z-axis and dealing with virtual polygons
Everybody gets distracted, except those who plan the flight and fly the plan while having full awareness of their performance, do you know some in that species ?
To be more pragmatic: everybody OCAS should have a warning from ATC if they are about to infringe CAS if they are on FMC? why this is viewed as “pilot limitation” not “ATC limitation” is a sensible question…
Actually it was a badly chosen word – “proportion”, because the real answer is to categorise the infringements by type and then by consequence, but whether that data will ever be seen one can only wonder.
The CAA themselves hint at the categories of infringement, and also hint at a proportional response to minor infringements. You will see they give three categories of infringement. The problem has always been for category 1 infringements, they also state that a range of penalty options are available. This is where the cynical would say it provides scope to rig the number of warning letters and Gasco referrals. It is also where those on the side of fair open and transparent would say if it is a minor infringement and the first time the consequence should be a warning letter, in the same way if you speed for the first time, but your speed is less then 20% over (or whatever it is) the consequence is a speed awareness course. There is no doubt, no range of consequences.
Even then we cant seem to define “minor”. Cub came on here to tell us minor was relative to impact on other traffic, even though the pilot had no knowledge of that traffic, so that essentially even though the seperation was the same for a CAT travelling towards you it would not be a minor infringment, whilst going away, it would be. I said I though this was complete nonesense, and out of step with every recognised process involving a penalty of any sort, but unfortunately there is evidence that is exactly how an infringement is assessed.
These are fundamental concerns about the process which any Regulator should answer, but has failed to do so.
I am afraid without those answers I have no confidence that the system is fit for purpose and I truly believe nor could anyone else.
FT, have no fear matters are underway to delve into this whole process in far more depth and in such a way that it will be difficult for the answers to not be forthcoming, which is a shame, because the “right thing to do” was simply provide the information, answer the questions and stop all this cloak and dagger nonesense unless you simply want to lose complete faith with those you serve – or maybe you have forgotten that it is to serve that is your honourable duty.
Airborne_Again wrote:
magistrates court have three lay judges. I expect that even for a very simple case each judge must spend at least 1 hour on preparation, the hearing and making the decision. Then there must be some clerk to take records and write out the verdict. The prosecutor must have spent several hours preparing the case.
We are only talking about prosecution costs, not court costs. So the costs of the prosecuting lawyers and their support staff, plus the costs incurred in bringing witnesses to court (mainly travel.)
Peter wrote:
Sure; a Mags court case must cost much more than that in salaries, fixed costs (premises, light, heat, cleaning, etc).
As I say, these costs are paid for out of the public purse. I am talking only about the costs incurred by the prosecutor.
The bigger stuff goes to the County courts.
County courts are for civil, not criminal cases. Criminal cases that are likely to result in prison sentences longer than 6 months go to Crown Court.
