In the UK, A/G can prevent somebody landing, because he is an agent of the landowner, and you cannot just land on private land. The “public airport” concept doesn’t exist in the UK (or most of Europe for that matter). The A/G guy is supposed to speak a specific phrase which says “on behalf of the landowner I am refusing you landing”. I have never heard this being spoken (unlikely I would anyway; I don’t fly around small UK fields/strips much) but I have this from an ATCO who does/did consultancy for airfields. No idea if it is current but it is logical; you cannot just land “anywhere” you want (emergency excepted, obviously).
But, anyway, Coventry appears to have been ATC, not A/G.
A post was made earlier, deleted by the poster for some reason, saying that the defendant pleaded NG, which would help explain the huge fine. And the CAA is saying (post #1) that the runway was occupied at the time.
The other details must be a matter of public record, somewhere… well, perhaps not since in a Magistrates Court there is no transcript. Sometimes you get a reporter from a local rag sitting there and then the details appear in the rag the next day, but often grossly distorted (as I well know).
Peter wrote:
A post was made earlier, deleted by the poster for some reason, saying that the defendant pleaded NG, which would help explain the huge fine.
Sounds like a good example of “this would never happen to me.”
Until it does.
With the patchy implementation of the 8.33 channels this must be happening more often this year? People do make genuine mistakes, myself included, but based on the limited facts the reaction in this case is disproportionate. A salutary tale to check notams.
Looks like I missed the excitement earlier. Back to my cherries and watching the sunset.
Is it common practise for UK courts to impose higher fines if a defendant pleads NG!?
Not the court. The CAA itself applies for much greater costs, and they tell you in advance they will do that.
Another thing, IME (not from any aviation related prosecution though), in a Magistrates Court (the lowest level of criminal law), if you plead G and then change your mind to NG (which needs a defence lawyer with balls, not a small street corner guy), the case gets adjourned immediately and restarted on another date. That drives costs up all around. Also, IME, it gives the prosecution the opportunity to modify the evidence, because now they have to do some real work.
Looks like I missed the excitement earlier. Back to my cherries and watching the sunset.
You missed nothing… I just wasted a lot of my time, when I could have been playing with the plane 
Is it common practise for UK courts to impose higher fines if a defendant pleads NG!?
In the magistrates court I believe they have limited plea bargaining, e.g. plead guilty to A & B and we’ll forget about C & D, but I think this is only in criminal cases. I’m assuming this is a civil case as there were damages as well as the fine (punitive damages don’t really exist in the UK).
Happy to be corrected on any of this.
just wasted a lot of my time
Sounds like a full time job
Magistrates Courts, and CAA actions like this, are 100% criminal AFAIK.
Peter wrote:
The reality in GA is that most pilots don’t get notams…
Are you sure about that? A huge number of GA pilots have Skydemon (or something similar) which makes getting the NOTAMs very easy and without (most) of the useless ones (although Skydemon for some reason still insists on showing me NOTAMs about not overflying eastern Ukraine and other war zones for a trip from Andreas to Blackpool)
I based my comment on pilots I know and have known
We could certainly debate the percentages. Obviously everybody reading EuroGA is tech-savvy otherwise you would not be here! But pop down to your “local” and look at the pilot demographic. There is a large % who are struggling with a modern phone, let alone tablets and such. And because most newcomers pack it in within a year or two, the bulk of the community is people who have been out of the training machine for some 20+ years. Like myself actually; like most pilots I do all I can to avoid flying with an examiner of any sort But I am tech-savvy so I know the current tools (I use EasyVFR for this VFR stuff). And the 2-yearly flight with an instructor is a “no fail possible” exercise so long as the FI survives the flight.
When Shoreham changed its ATIS frequency, a high % of arrivals had not known about it (you could hear it on the radio). I reckon any airfield which changes its main frequency is going to get significant mayhem (and I am not talking about changing from 125.000 to 125.005 which as all the tech savvy people know is the same thing, and which is the bulk of the 8.33 changes in the UK 
). The UK annual average is 20-30hrs and there is a lot of 10hr pilots out there, in their 70s etc. That is only 10 years ahead of me but these guys have not had the IT exposure.
Betting back to the subject here, I wonder how many UK pilots would land at a “proper airport” (like Coventry) with no response on the radio? I would be sh1t scared to do that.
Peter wrote:
I wonder how many UK pilots would land at a “proper airport” (like Coventry) with no response on the radio?
I wouldn’t, I’d divert to somewhere else.
I also wonder how many UK airfields can give the ICAO light signals we all learned as PPLs.
Fines in mags court are reduced by 33% if the defendant pleads guilty at the first opportunity. Reductions for late guilty pleas are subject to the discretion of the bench.
Costs for trials are considerably greater than for guilty pleas for obvious reasons. If the reasons are not obvious, let me know.
It is incorrect to say that only criminal matters are dealt with in magistrates court. There are a wide range of other issues (family, licensing, mental health etc etc). However, it is true that purely Civil matters where neither party is the State are not dealt with.
