Maurice's Blog

Well the choice was Aussie, NZ or Canada but France carries a certain 'picance' (or what ever the word is) after the behaviour of Uncle Sam's Depatment Homeland Security. Must get the bike out and head for the ferry...tallyho!

2 of the aircraft on the list all but sold and back at the week end for 'talk' and some 'aeronautical activity'.

 If I am not allowed back in US then the plan to fly round Africa in my French registered 1943 J3L4 Cub must commence! 

Ciel Bleu

I continue my fight in London, on the 16th June for my right to 'practice veterinary surgery' against the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons.

I'm fighting this battle because I have been struck off as a vet for seven years, today, on the argument that my attitude towards authority reflects on my professional ability to care for sick animals. No veterinary surgeon has ever been put before a court on such an argument when no evidence was tendered by the prosecution suggesting malpractice. To the contrary, Their Lordships at the Privy Council Appeal, on the 19th January 2004 made the point that my record as a veterinary surgeon was exemplary.

The RCVS demand that I except the convictions obtained by the South Wales Police were correct before I can be reinstated as a veterinary surgeon. But since I did not commit the offences submitted to the court by the police it would be dishonest just to placate the politics behind this.

For those who would like to follow the details of the case at this point in time please download the file here.

Maurice

Now the plan was to fly in my new little yellow cub from Texas on to the Falkland Islands with my latest sponsors, Alvin and Kandy of AMT Training Solutions, promoting our talks along the way. 

From Argentina I was to fly back up the Andes mountain range to the Rockies for Alaska. My floats were waiting there and once assembled it was either trans-Canada on the lakes, converting to skis for the North Pole on the Hudson Bay or, if no sponsorship matured, back on wheels again for Greenland and home.

But arrested just 5 miles from the US President's ranch near Crawford, East Texas, on the 25^th April at gun point, had now put the whole dream in jeopardy.

Once the Secret Service had handed me over to the FBI on the side of the road [like I was the last fertile Dodo egg on the planet] then the Sheriff of McClellan County turns up, Stetson and all amounting to eleven vehicles by now. After numerous phone calls I was made to do the ‘field sobriety' test  and ‘walk the line',  heel to toe, nine times, turn and repeat the same back again without falling over or miscounting!

Now counting was fine but memories immediately came flooding back of a certain veterinary student, Gareth Jones, back in 1967 who, whilst a little under the influence of my home made beer, returning late at night from a boat party in Bristol, had received the very first roadside ‘breath test' having put his old car through a hedge! The Breath Test marked the ending of the days when certain of the ‘chosen', unrecognised at the motoring scene, were later taken aside at the station to be allowed to quietly sober up!

Needless to say I failed the ‘sobriety test'. To walk in the way dictated, with all that metal in my leg, a previously dislocated hip, a fractured pelvis, ankle and toes made it quite out of the question!

So on to the Waco County Prison was my next stop, in handcuffs again, for Uncle Sam's alternative, a ‘definitive test' by blowing into a machine which gave the predicted  four nought reading of alcohol in the blood stream. The hastily thought after drug tests held a similar zero result. But this was just delay tactics with no audit trail.

Was I going home now? No chance. After still more delay it was then suggested I had said to a prison warder, during a very fascinating prison experience, I had ‘glided my aircraft from Japan onto the US President's front lawn and recently had ditched [another aeroplane, I assume] in the Caribbean'. I was therefore going to Waco Hospital with the Secret Service in train for fear I was mentally ill!

After many hours of interrogation, brain scans, x-rays and analysis of body fluids, long into the dead of night, I was eventually shipped off to Austin State Hospital, down south, in handcuffs to the secure Psychiatric Unit for up to 90 days ‘observation'.

A little record keeping appeared to be creeping in so I again demanded the usual things one does in such circumstances. The making of a detailed written statement under caution and obtaining a copy of it was just one request. Access to telephone my wife, an independent medical examination, a copy of my medical records was another. "Dream on, Maurice".

After a week and failure to get heard in a court of law, get a lawyer of my own choosing, my own doctor or speak or be able to write to my family I am suddenly released with the offer of a lift to my cub in the farmer's field from either The President's Men or Deputy Sheriff of the County...my choice.

I chose neither. At the aircraft, having enjoyed Alvin and Kandy's lift and company over lunch, I say good bye and fly south for maintenance, the installing of wing tanks for Argentina and for the re registration to a UK register now it was obvious even to me, to travel foreign in a US aircraft, especially South America, sleeping under the fuselage at night or not, was shear folly.

Bellville police, a one horse town two hundred miles south, near Houston, had other ideas.

 I was soon re arrested and charged for having an open alcoholic container on the road side and had much of the night under Secret Service interrogation all over again before being put back on a concrete floor with no bedding.

Next day with much futile plea bargaining, offering me $500, bail waiver and time off for good behaviour thrown my way, I am clamped in leg irons, chains and handcuffs and sped away to Houston's huge body disposal factory for aliens dominated by affable but apparently subservient  Mexicans who slept most of the day and snored most of the night.

To cut a long story short I was soon segregated for ten days from the one thousand inmates without access to any semblance of a judicial system, contact with my wife or Embassy, seriously worried I had been drugged and denied my medication. My Texas partner of AMT Training Solutions, http://www.amt-1.com/  was refused his weekly visit but at least had it confirmed to him I was there and in solitary confinement.

For the nurse to have to ring ‘Washington', right in front of me, while two doctors surmised as to just which bloods the Pentagon needed, said it all. Especially when everybody there but me knew I was  to be put on a scheduled flight to England within a few hours and escorted  by members of United States Department of Homeland Security all the way to Gatwick, UK.

I have landed in twenty nine countries so far, flying around the world in a J3 cub, each peoples revealing their own welcome, hospitality and friendship. The current United States of America is not the one I remember when as a veterinary student in 1964 on a seven week vacation. I hitch-hiked  from New York to Los Angeles to Vancouver to Quebec, finishing up with two nights under a tree in Central Park and all on just ten dollars twenty five cents.

On the eight thousand mile hike almost every Canadian or Yank greeted me with a great smile and embarrassing hospitality. Now, forty years on, I'm not just old and grumpy the US is a far different place.        

25^th April 2008

I had recently landed, only to take off again, from McGregor Airport, Waco, Texas, on a most gorgeous bright April day in order to find somewhere more hospitable for the night. The weather forecast for the day had indicated scattered transient but inclement weather from cumulonimbus clouds gathering to the south.  I noted these were now gathering significantly in size, charged with their electricity, soon enveloping the heavens with a much heavier dark fluffy pattern. My direction of flight in the old two seater J3 Piper Cub aircraft was somewhat settled for me as the skies to the south and east quickly turned ominous.

 A downpour of rain then hit the aeroplane as I purred along at seventy miles per hour making forward vision virtually impossible. Just minutes earlier it had been streaming sun shine with not a breath of wind.  Thunder and lightning soon broke out and continued long after I had decided to duck out of it into a pretty Texan meadow far below. On approach to land, following a preliminary circuit to spy out potholes, ditches and possible wire, I was greeted by a huge flower bed of pink and white flowers, weeds do doubt and a muscle bound black bull grazing with his herd at the other end of the strip. He could be sorted later.

Either under or over the power cables, straddling the long grass, was my dilemma due to a sudden change in wind direction now buffeting us both violently from the side. It also did not help my final decision as to just which field was best to get out of this turbulence, forces sufficient now to cause structural damage to the airframe. As the old adage goes, ‘never land unless you are sure you can get out again'!

However, with decision now made and committed on a somewhat rutted and possibly boggy permanent pasture, prone to flooding, I later noticed, I throttled the engine back and glided down through rain that was simply bucketing down while the lightning crackled all around illuminating the black back drop of a sky before us.

Water poured into the cockpit in the descent as both windows and doors had to be wide open in order that I could stick my head out into the slip stream to try and see with better accuracy and just where we were going to finish up was paramount in the agenda!

Safely on the ground I taxied her back close to the road and bridge with tail facing the wind hoping that, should the wind suddenly change direction again, I could rely on the raised road and trees for protection while I hurriedly reached for the ropes, hammer and the nails for picketing her down.

No sooner had I started the wind died and the sun appeared!  All I could hear was a peaceful cacophony of bird sounds in the adjacent woodland. No other man made machine in sight. Only the euphoria, post flight, experienced by pilots that have just ‘broke the bonds of earth'.

The severe thunder storm had moved one, albeit but a few fields away. A Texan field, incidentally, can stretch a mile or two in all directions. A little different to my South Wales six hundred foot airstrip outside our kitchen window in the shadow of Randolph Hurst's old Norman castle.

I was then taken aback by the beauty around me. Flowers and the abundance of lush green foliage was everywhere. No different, at first site, to the farmland in the West Country of England where I had been brought up as a child. The Texan summer was yet to arrive.

One of the issues deciding which field to land in, as I circled overhead, was the sight of a huge Texan flag painted on the full length of a barn roof. Well, at least I am still in hospitable surroundings, I thought, as I reminisced on the wonderful hospitality over the past few days that I had enjoyed from Houston, San Marcos to Odessa and then back to Robert Lee and Comanche.

I decided the storm was gone and so clambered up onto the road before deciding what to do next.

Having decided which way to walk I slowly set off down the road in a westerly direction my right ankle, full of fixation screws from an old hang gliding accident, ‘telling me all about it' as the rough ground of the field had exacerbated the ensuing arthritis and, no doubt, made worse with the result of far too much good or not so good red wine over the years.

I wished to leave a message of thanks to a local ranch owner concerning the US Coast Guard, my having previously checked he was away but just might be back for the coming week end, starting tomorrow.

Another thunderstorm, as if from nowhere, soon had me drenched but wind there was not.  Hard hailstones, almost the size of pigeon eggs, hurt as they bounced off my hat and shoulders. Again the shower and lightning was gone almost as quickly as it had arrived leaving the road in large puddles of crystal clear water..  The sun was again blazing down and I must have been at least a mile down the road by now from the little Cub, in the process of trying to photograph a scissor bird on a fence, when I heard a screech of tyres behind me.

I looked round to see two fast moving male white Caucasians exiting the limousine at speed. I was impressed. Both were brandishing what looked like nine millimetre Berretta pistols but the only problem was, they were both pointing at me.

Up with the hands, down spread eagled on the road, hands slowly behind your back, for handcuffs, the usual stuff, seen on television, except I was having to do it! Face down on the gravel is not comfortable nor is it easy for a sixty three year old trying to get up again with his hands behind his back.

Pockets are searched while a passport is quickly tendered by the prisoner with the vain hope of  expediting this sudden new relationship thrust upon him with the well dressed ‘men in black'. What was to turn out would be a long drawn out experience, debatably quite unlawful, in a Texas Mental Institution.

As Dryden wrote, around the turn of the 17^th century:

 "There is a pleasure sure in being mad that none but mad men know". 

My proposed deportation is based on false information already confirmed by the British Embassy, Secret Service, FBI and the Sheriff of McLellon County. All but the British Embassy at the scene of the alleged offence.

Further, senior DHS officers, Orlando Gardona and Special Agent Jason C. Gadberry, together, told me on the date of the charge, I had landed my aircraft on a public highway thereby being in breach of section 237 (a) (4) (A) (ii) of the Immigration and Nationality Act i.e. "engaged in criminal activity which endangers public safety".

Further, on 1^st May the deputy sheriff authorised me to fly the aircraft away from the field in which I landed, incidentally more than 500ft from a public highway.

The Federal Aviation Authority confirmed to me and witnessed by two US pilots (anxious to recover the aircraft from Belville on my behalf) the landing was lawful. FAA contacts are: Mr Arnold Thermeyer, Mr Brian Troupe and Mr Doug Gould.

In respect of the incident, subject to the pilot's licence and airworthiness of the aircraft, I had committed no offence and "put you to the proof here of".

The FAA have obtained both police and secret service statements that I had landed the aircraft in a farmer's field, not a highway, in bad weather well away from the restricted P-49 zone surrounding the US president's Texas ranch.

1s PA Notams stated my right to conduct a flight from Commanche, Texas to the incident site. This was also confirmed by two US pilots at Hamilton Aerodrome (I have names).

If I had infringed any civil or criminal law or was "engaged in a criminal activity which endangers public safety or national security" how come I was offered a lift before witnesses at Austin State Hospital by the police and secret service?

The secret service area supervisor with fellow officer at A.S.H. offered me a lift to fly the aeroplane from the field unsupervised - not a lawman officially in sight, unless you include SS agents on adjacent land filming it?. If any law had been violated or was likely to be violated how was it I was left in command to fly that aircraft in any direction I liked if it had not been decided by the president's men, the FAA, the FBI, the A.S.H. court and "uncle John Cobbly and all" that I was a danger to national security.

Later that night, 200 miles away, while on a holding charge of "public intoxication" fabricated by the arresting officer, while submitting still further nonsense to the DHS, based on hearsay, I had my bailbond waivered and offered an open door. Why?

The British Embassy, Houston had just informed me that the secret service, upon hearing of DHS involvement, had offered to expedite the issues, for all the obvious reasons and had offered, without deportation, to

have me immediately released from Belville Jail and get me on a Houston flight home for the UK (my flight is rebooked Orlando 6am - London Wed 6^th May 08).

That is why Judge Terri resinder waived the $500 bailbond for my immediate release and took into account my time in custody should I be persuaded to change my plea of not guilty for a $300 fine misdeameanor strenuously denied.

The outcome of what was a perfectly harmless approach to thank the Officer in Chief of the US coastguard for recently saving my life has turned out to be a nightmare and warning to others.

I require this statement of truth to be sworn under affidavit US Regulations and be submitted to the highest authority for reconsideration.

I never wavered my right to have this case go before a US court of law (form 1-791). Copy to British Embassy please.

Thank you and God help America.

Maurice J Kirk 3^rd May 08