"FLYING PARSON."

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 268, 11 November 1937, Page 9

"FLYING PARSON."

DANGER ALLEGED.

LANDING ON FORESHORE. CHARGES ARE DISMISSED. (Special.—By Air Mail.) LONDON, October 21. A charge against the Rev. Cecil Dudley Clair Boulton, the "Flying Parson," of flying in a way that caused unnecessary danger to people on the foreshore, was dismissel by the Weston-super-Afare magistrates. The hearing lasted five hours.

Mr. G. H. L. Barnes, who prosecuted, said that when a large number of holi-day-makers were on the beach on August Bank Holiday Mr. Boulton circled over the foreehore and after making two or three attempts, did so near the golf course. It was alleged that Mr. Boulton flew at a low altitude and caused people "to run helter-skelter" as ho landed. A loudspeaker van announced that the 'plane had landed through a shortage of petrol and that the "flying parson" would hold a service near his 'plane. Mr. Barnes suggested that if Mr. Boulton had landed normally the service would have been robbed of much of its novelty. Mr. Boulton, who pleaded not guilty, said that near Weston the engine misfired and he thought he might have made a miscalculation about his petrol. He said he landed without harm to anyone. He saw no one running, and everyone was most friendly.