Man jailed for taking aircraft

Press, 19 August 1981, Page 1

Man jailed for taking aircraft

PA Hamilton A former World War II pilot was sentenced in the District Court at Hamilton yesterday to three months jail for unlawfully taking an aircraft from Taupo on July 25, the day the Springboks’ match against Waikato was abandoned.

Pat Murray McQuarrie, aged 59, a control clerk, of Waiuku, had pleaded guilty to charges of converting the Cessna 172, and of attempting to convert another plane from Mount Maunganui on July 22, the date of the Springboks’ match at Gisborne.

Counsel, Mr Barry Little-

wood, said McQuarrie was a man of peace who stood convicted only of an offence against property and who was not “remotely likely to offend against persons.”

He said his client, a veteran pilot of World War II and of African flying doctor service, had told a probation officer he would have considered landing the Cessna on Rugby Park at Hamilton but only if it had been safe to do so.

While he had no intention of endangering anyone, he had thought that the police might assume the opposite and cancel the match, which they had done, the Court was told.

Judge Richardson asked what McQuarrie’s motive was if he had not intended to crash his aircraft into the rugby crowd. His suggestion that he land the craft if he had considered it safe to do so showed he had been trifling with doing an extremely dangerous act. Even had he decided only to “buzz the crowd,” he could well have caused the loss of hundreds of lives had anything gone wrong, the. Judge said.

“How sad that of this man of peace the police could ever have said that he intended to crash an aircraft into a rugby field,” Mr Littlewood said.

Although the police had not repeated this suggestion, it had been repeated in the news media and done his client’s reputation a great deal of damage by presenting him as a man of violence. -