A story in today’s Telegraph tells how a Jeep has been used to destroy property on the estate of Britain’s richest MP. His horses were sent bolting down a main road and could well have been killed and the Jeep was driven through a hanger destroying three aircraft.

G-AXZO before the attack.

At least one of those aircraft was NOT owned by the MP the 29 year old man arrested was likely attacking. It was a 1950s Cessna, owned by a seventy year old gentleman who had lovingly restored it. It was in fact a rare Cessna 180 taildragger and in fact it was the very aeroplane I spent six years of my life jumping out of and despatching student skydivers from between 1975 and 1981.

The Telegraph says Officers say the Jeep was driven into the planes on the 20,000-acre estate’s airfield on purpose.

Peter Ford, 70, of Upper Basildon, near Reading, who owns one of the planes, said: “I was gobsmacked, stunned, at the damage.

“They left bits of the car embedded in the planes. They were completely trashed with the wings almost detached.

“Our plane is like a vintage car – we spent a lot of time, love and money to keep it going and there’s only half a dozen in the UK. They’re no longer in production.”

 Another excerpt from the Telegraph confirms the identity of the former RSA Parachute Club’s jump ship. Police were called to the airfield on Tuesday morning and confirmed a classic 1950s vintage Cessna G-AXZO and two other four and six seater Cessnas were vandalised at Englefield on Monday night by a vehicle being driven into them.

The full story can be read in today’s Telegraph.

The MP concerned is a very wealthy man and his estate has received millions in EU subsidy; whatever protesters think of him there are legal ways to protest peacefully and effectively in this country without risking death and injury to animals and without destroying property, especially property belonging to innocent enthusiasts and hobbyists.

Personally I’m very sad that a wonderful vintage aeroplane which was a big part of my life and that of my friends and colleagues and which features in my book ‘Of Land, Sea And Sky‘ should have been destroyed by a mindless idiot to no purpose. I feel terribly sorry also for the aircraft’s owner who may get an insurance payout, but the chances of that lovely old bird flying again look tragically slim.