Styles and Ors v AG. [ 2006 ] JCA 95
https://je.vlex.com/vid/styles-and-ors-v-793647157
The “Belgian evidence”:
“On 19th September 2000 Richard Styles flew a four-seater Cessna aircraft registered G-GEAR from Wycombe in Great Britain to Belgium.
At 20.10 hrs on 19th September 2000 G-GEAR landed at St Hubert. Shortly afterwards Styles manoeuvred G-GEAR for take off but something went wrong and G-GEAR crashed.
Styles climbed from the cockpit and was questioned and later detained at the scene of the crash.
The following day at 13.15 hrs a black canvas travel bag was recovered near the crash scene in the woods. The bag contained approximately 130,000 ecstasy tablets. These were contained in 130 packets wrapped in a sleeping bag and in a thin mattress and further protected by 13 bath towels. A global positioning system was found in G-GEAR.
On 21st September 200[0?] two men were spotted near the scene of the crash in an English registered Ford Mondeo. One of the men was arrested, the other escaped.
On 18th November 2003, Styles was convicted in his absence of having imported, exported, manufactured, transported, had in his possession, sold, offered for sale, delivered or acquired illicitly for payment or freely without previous authorisation from the competent authority 130,000 ecstasy tablets.
Styles was sentenced in his absence to three years’ imprisonment and fined 100 Euros.
On 15th December 2003, Styles appealed in his absence to the Liege Court of Appeal. On 20th December 2003 the Court of Appeal dismissed Styles’ appeal and in his absence increased his sentence to five years’ imprisonment."
IO390 wrote:
Not very smart really.
+ hurting the GA community, as in ammo for customs, police, etc…
Styles and Ors v AG. [ 2006 ] JCA 95
It did come up on first Google results, G-GEAR was C182RG that crashed in Belgium
https://www.ukairfieldguide.net/airfields/Wycombe-Air-Park
Yes; it is a really stupid thing to do, in several ways.
So this is the same guy from back then??? Progressed onto twins…
BTW , Love the Reg on the Cessna “G- GEAR”… nothing like advertising a line of work, eh?
Love the Reg on the Cessna “G- GEAR”… nothing like advertising a line of work
Well he also crashed on prison near the runway in Belgium: fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony !
I was under the impression that the judge will confiscate the means of smuggling.
So, if you earn… dunno, say, 10 000€ (no idea if that’s reasonable) in your own 300 000€ plane for a run and the plane is gone in the end – in addition to your sentence – it makes for a hilariously darwinian way to shoot your own foot.
This will be country dependent. I have no idea what the UK law provides for.
However this is very bad for GA since the trash press will get their hands on it (maybe not due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine right now) and doubly bad because it is N-reg (the Sala footballer crash was bad for that too).
Only an idiot will be smuggling anything in a GA plane, because it is so visible…
Funnily enough I have just received a PM on a US GA site (which I haven’t been to for ages) asking me if I could transport some Ukrainians. I didn’t reply, because I am not going to fly the TB20 into Ukraine, and they can perfectly well get normal transport once they are in say Poland. So this was probably some illegal proposition.
What gets me is how someone of “no fixed abode” gets to fly aircraft – surely, CAA would want to know where the pilots who infringe UK airspace actually LIVE? I doubt that “behind the second hangar on the left in the battered Mondeo” counts as a postal address…..
What makes you think he has a licence?
