An Anglesey man has been jailed for 18 months today in Mold Crown Court for endangering aircraft in North Wales.
John Arthur Jones (66) of Bodffordd near Anglesy was found guilty in July this year after denying 13 counts of endangering RAF aircraft flying from RAF Valley.
Jones had taken a dislike to aircraft training near his house and retaliated by shining high power torch beams at the pilots using RAF Mona for vital night time training.
Jailing him for 18 months, Justice Geraint Walters told Jones “You possess an abundance of self-belief in your own ability to achieve things, which transcends all reason and which is born out of profound arrogance. The consequences could have been devastating.”
Jones claimed that the pilots were harassing him by flying over his property and he would simply inspect his property with a torch and on one occasion may have “instinctively shone his torch up” as a jet passed by.
John Philpotts prosecuting said “The defendant endangered aircraft and their pilots by shining a bright light into the cockpit of Hawk jets as they prepared to land. He became displeased by the aviation activity in the skies near his land” adding that Jones had “become obsessed with the activity of the aircraft”
Read: Anglesey man in court charged with endangering aircraft.