I occasionally have a trawl through the Statutory Instrument database to see what little snippets are being slipped through into law without debate.
Today, I found this interesting little item :
2011 No. 9
CIVIL AVIATION
The Air Navigation (Restriction of Flying) (Ford Prison)
Regulations 2011
Made – – – – at 15.52 hours on 1st January 2011Coming into force – – with immediate effect
The Secretary of State for a reason affecting the public interest deems it necessary to restrict flying in the vicinity of the area specified in the Schedule by reason of an emergency having arisen in that area.
The Secretary of State makes the following Regulations in exercise of the powers conferred by
Article 161 of the Air Navigation Order 2009(a).1. These Regulations may be cited as the Air Navigation (Restriction of Flying) (Ford Prison)
Regulations 2011 and come into force with immediate effect.2. No aircraft is to fly below a height of 3000 feet above mean sea level over the area specified
in Column 1 of the Schedule, being an area bounded by a circle of the radius specified in
Column 2 and centred on the position specified in Column 3.3. These Regulations do not apply to any aircraft flying in accordance with directions given by
Sussex Police.Signed by authority of the Secretary of State for Transport
1st January 2011 at 15.52 hoursSCHEDULE
Specified area – Ford PrisonRadius of circle – 4 nautical miles
Position of centre of circle – 5048N 00034W
Now you may remember that January 1st was the day that the prison governor decided that it would be a good idea to conduct breathylyser tests on the inmates :
Specialist prison guards in body armour have quelled a riot by around 40 inmates at an open jail in West Sussex.
A number of buildings were burned to the ground at Ford Prison, near Arundel, during the violence which broke out early on New Year’s Day.
Michael Spurr, chief executive officer of the National Offender Management Service, said the disturbance was “successfully resolved” by 2200 GMT.
The Prison Service said 100 prisoners were being moved to other jails.
A spokesman said: “Those identified as being involved in the disturbance will be relocated back into closed conditions.”
Mr Spurr said the disturbance had started at midnight on 1 January and it had been brought to an end by “specially trained prison staff”.
“Although damage has been sustained to the prison, there has only been a minimal loss of accommodation,” he said.
“These types of incidents in open prisons are rare and it is to the credit of all the staff involved that no staff or prisoners sustained significant injuries during the incident.”
…
The Prison Officers’ Association said the incident started after staff tried to breathalyse some prisoners.
Now, was that SI signed in order to prevent any news helicopters inconveniently filming the riot police moving in to break a few heads or was it to stop the helicopter owning friends of some of the inmates from dropping in to pick them up during the confusion?
Since the riot started at midnight and this order was signed in the middle of the afternoon I would lean more heavily toward the censorship of news option especially as this was about the time that the heavy mob was being sent in.
Interestingly, the last time I had a look through the SI’s I came across another one of these flying prohibitions centred on London City Airport due to some unexplained emergency which I still haven’t managed to find out about :
There is an opportunity here for a journalist wanting to make a name for themselves. This sort of instrument doesn’t cover miniature remote controlled helicopters. The ones the Police have trialled as camera platforms would be very efficient and all but undetectable. Hook them up with a tiny HD webcam and wifi feed and bingo pictures that are byond bug choppers.
Of course there is the issue of being in the right place at the right time to solve but it would definitely be worth it to get a ‘hold the front page’ scoop.
That is a damned good idea actually although with the current lot proving themselves to be just a big a bunch of controlling shits as the last lot I would imagine legislation (probably by SI) to outlaw those as well.