Liam Chadwick jailed for six months after Ryanair pilot reported seeing green beam at Bristol airport

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

A Cardiff man has been jailed for six months after shining a laser beam at three passenger planes and a police helicopter.

Liam Chadwick, 28, pleaded guilty at Cardiff crown court to four counts of recklessly acting in a manner likely to endanger aircraft.

A Ryanair pilot reported the green beam after taking off from Bristol airport on the night of 1 August.

Two planes had to have their flight paths altered because of the laser, prosecutor Tracey Lloyd-Nesling told the court.

Lasers pose a significant danger to pilots because they can temporarily blind or even cause eye damage.

There have been just a handful of prosecutions since it became an offence five years ago.

There were 1,440 “laser incidents” logged by the Civil Aviation Authority in the UK last year, with Heathrow recording the highest number at 168, followed by Manchester with 107.



A police helicopter was sent to identify the source of the laser in eastern Cardiff and the pilot realised it was coming from a top-floor flat.

Officers were sent to the address and could see Chadwick moving about inside the flat. The prosecutor said he had taken three minutes to answer the door.

“He denied knowing anything about it, but they found parts of a laser pen which had been taken apart,” Lloyd-Nesling said.

Police put the laser pen back together and found that it worked, displaying a green light as described by the pilots. Chadwick only confessed when police went to arrest his girlfriend as well as him.

His barrister, Ruth Smith, said her client accepted that his actions had been reckless but claimed he had not seen the aircraft in the night sky.

“It was a laser pen he had bought for £1 and he didn’t realise or appreciate the consequences of what he was doing,” she told the court. “He is deeply apologetic and says he wants to write a letter of apology to each of the pilots.”

However, the judge, Rhys Rowlands, told Chadwick that his actions were too serious to not warrant jail.

“Such offences are becoming all too prevalent and it must be made absolutely plain to those who may buy these pens and behave in this way that custodial sentences are inevitable in order to deter others,” he said.

“The consequences to those travelling on those aircraft and to others on the ground could have been catastrophic.”



Chadwick, of St Mellons in Cardiff, was also sentenced to a further six months jail for a previous suspended sentence he received in November 2014 for possessing cannabis with intent to supply.