Here was I thinking he was a simple knob for buzzing a family with his toy. Now it seems he has gone that extra litigious length to prove he is really a "grand knob of the 1st order".
Bloke whose drone was blasted out of sky by angry dad loses another court battle for compo
An appeals court has snubbed a drone owner's demand for $1,500 compensation from a furious dad who blew the flying gizmo out of the sky when it hovered over his family. In July 2015, William Merideth, 47, was at home in Hillview, Kentucky, America, when his daughter came in from sunbathing in the garden to say there was a …
COMMENTS
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Saturday 25th March 2017 15:14 GMT Anonymous Coward
What a colostomy bag...
If you come into someone's yard & mount a camera on a pole so you can watch a child sunbathing, do you REALLY think the property owner isn't going to come out with a chainsaw to cut down the pole, a cricket bat to beat the shit out of the camera, & then offer to smash in your skull if you do it again?
You flew a drone over his house so you could film his underage daughter, the courts aren't going to be sympathetic to your irrational demand to be compensated for the damaged goods.
If you had tried that shit on the other side of the pond, would they have slapped you with an ASBO by now with cries of "think of the children!"?
Keep on appealing the case against you, I hope you go bankrupt from the legal fees.
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Monday 27th March 2017 13:02 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Cricket bats
"You will find they make them from aluminum in the colonies"
Which 'colonies' are you referring to?
In New Zealend, any decent cricket bat would be made of proper willow as it should, but other lightweight metal products tend to be made of 'aluminium'. No idea what this 'aluminum' stuff is.
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Sunday 26th March 2017 02:43 GMT Number6
Re: Cricket bats
many do, at least in the SF Bay area, one place cricket is actually played.
Yes, I've seen cricket in progress on the local school playing field at weekends. I think most, if not all, of those playing are of Indian (or near neighbour) descent, which might explain it. There are quite a few people from the sub-continent in the Bay Area so they have enough interest to make teams. Probably less so in Kentucky.
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Monday 27th March 2017 07:49 GMT jake
Re: What a colostomy bag...
I think you'll find it's not baseball bats or clue-by-4s where folks seem to like settling disputes this way ... they actually prefer axe handles. Or pool[0] cues.
[0] Yes, I play snooker & billiards ... The boneheads who think physical force is the answer to everything have rarely heard of either more enlightened game.
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Saturday 25th March 2017 20:20 GMT Red Bren
Re: What a colostomy bag...
AC, could you cite where it says his daughters were under-age? I've re-read this latest article, the original El Reg article, and the WDRB story, and nowhere does it say mention under-age daughters. It's perfectly feasible that his daughters are in their twenties.
What the drone's owner was doing was out of order. There's no need to invoke "Think of the children".
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Sunday 26th March 2017 10:02 GMT chivo243
Re: What a colostomy bag...
@Red Bren
Do you have children? Doesn't matter, this is beside the point, I do believe if our drone mastabator had been looking at the marksmen's wife it would have resulted in the same result.
Just think about your feelings regarding personal space and privacy...
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Monday 27th March 2017 17:04 GMT Red Bren
Re: What a colostomy bag...
@chivo243
Speaking as a parent, I have no more authority on this matter than a non-parent. The point I'm making is that the drone pilot was in the wrong, regardless of whether his target was the kids, the wife, the dad or the house. Which I think is the point you're making. So shall we agree to agree?
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Sunday 26th March 2017 13:04 GMT RJChurchill
Re: What a colostomy bag...
It didn't mention the girl was 16 in this article. But for less time to ask the Reg readers about the age you could google the incident and find out for yourself she was 16 and thus was under age.
http://www.wdrb.com/story/29650818/hillview-man-arrested-for-shooting-down-drone-cites-right-to-privacy
"VanMeter has a 16-year-old daughter who lays out at their pool. She says a drone hovering with a camera is creepy and weird."
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Monday 27th March 2017 07:48 GMT TheVogon
Re: What a colostomy bag...
"If you come into someone's yard & mount a camera on a pole so you can watch a child sunbathing, do you REALLY think the property owner isn't going to come out with a chainsaw to cut down the pole, a cricket bat to beat the shit out of the camera, & then offer to smash in your skull if you do it again?"
Sure, but I would also expect them to be arrested for assault and criminal damage and the court to order them to pay to fix said damage. They should have called to police to address the original issue...
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Monday 27th March 2017 08:11 GMT VulcanV5
Call out the cops . . .
@ TheVogon: You certainly have some odd notions about the role of the police:
"Sure, but I would also expect them to be arrested for assault and criminal damage and the court to order them to pay to fix said damage. They should have called to police to address the original issue..."
They should also have been prepared to wait for, let's say, two to six weeks whilst the police were busy dealing with other unambiguous crimes, after which time a nice community relations officer would've dropped by to say that, amazingly enough, we can't find anything in Law which stops you from blasting to smithereens the means whereby a possible paedophile gets off on viewing under-age children to their inevitable distress.
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