Birmingham student cleared of endangering police helicopter after row with girlfriend

A Birmingham student’s bid to prove to his girlfriend he was studying and not “out on the town” ended with him appearing in court and charged with putting the lives of two police officers and a helicopter pilot at risk.

Rizwan Ayoob told a district judge he had shone a powerful beam at his girlfriend’s flat following an argument over the phone.

But a green laser light was also shone at a police helicopter on a routine patrol above the city centre.

And police who later raided the apartment where the light had been shone from arrested Mr Ayoob.

David Palmer, prosecuting at Birmingham Magistrates Court said shortly before midnight on April 19 a force helicopter had been flying over the city when the laser light was directed at the aircraft.

Officers then trained a camera on the source of the beam, the balcony of a high-rise apartment block.

Mr Palmer said the flash had lasted for about seven seconds and while the helicopter was still hovering officers saw a second beam directed towards the ground while a third was again shone in the direction of the aircraft.

He said when officers went to the apartment Mr Ayoob was standing by a window and in front of him was a laser pen on the windowsill.

PC Neil Reading, the front observer in the helicopter, said he and his colleagues had decided to take positive action “bearing in mind the possible risk to the aircraft and the crew.”

Mr Ayoob, 22, who is from Bradford, denied acting in a manner likely to endanger an aircraft, said he had been studying at Aston University at the time and was living in student accommodation.

He said following the argument he had shone the laser pen at his girlfriend who was standing in the kitchen of an adjoining block.

Mr Ayoob said there had been others in the apartment and denied deliberately shining the laser at the helicopter.

District Judge David Chinery, who said he had taken into account the defendant’s previous good character, dismissed the charge saying that he could not be certain Mr Ayoob was the one who had aimed the beam at the helicopter.