Maurice Kirk flies to 2 years in jail

[SteveUK]

News just in, our favourite flying vet has just received 2 years at her majesty's pleasure for his services to the FMOTL movement. Surely bird like that warrants his own thread, even if just as a static epithet to him floating on the internet.

He was jailed for breaching his lifetime restraint order regarding the Hampstead Hoax. What with Sabine on bail and Rupert behind bars, this must be very worrying for Neelu. Still, given she's getting evicted soon jail might not be a bad idea.

So, in honour of the great man, Maurice Kirk - this is your life! Well, bits of it. His tale is so crazy its impossible to cover. The young Maurice was a a drinking partner of Oscar Wilde. Thats hardcore.

Maurice generally comes to light in 2002 when he lost his vets license and was fined £35k. There were numerous incidents leading up to this including attacking a teenage girl, police chases, dangerously driving animals, hurling abuse at police whilst naked on a bench and refusing to provide a specimen. He's existing anti government streak really fired up after this and he's been litigating hopelessly since then.

Fast forward to 2009 and he's back in jail on remand, this time on firearms chargers. A bitter row breaks out which is apparently still rumbling on today. He starts ranting about habeus corpus then goes on hunger strike.

Last year , whilst attempting to fly across Africa in a vintage plane he managed to dissapear, twice. Well done that man.

Then he washes up on the shores of the SRA mess and is hit with a restraining order (which he's currently arguing wasn't served properly). That was duly broke and he has just been sentenced.

His bonkers website: https://mauricejohnkirk.com/

[ArthurWankspittle]

dangerously driving animals

Do dangerously driving animals get licence restrictions from when they apply for a driving licence?
It sounds a bit Woody Allen - ...further the court takes a dim view of the fact that the sheep was under the age of 18......

[Hercule Parrot]

So, in honour of the great man, Maurice Kirk - this is your life! Well, bits of it. His tale is so crazy its impossible to cover. The young Maurice was a a drinking partner of Oscar Wilde. Thats hardcore.

Maurice generally comes to light in 2002 when he lost his vets license and was fined £35k. There were numerous incidents leading up to this including attacking a teenage girl, police chases, dangerously driving animals, hurling abuse at police whilst naked on a bench and refusing to provide a specimen. He's existing anti government streak really fired up after this and he's been litigating hopelessly since then.

All true, but at least he's a proper bonkers eccentric Englishman. You could have a roaring night out with him, and he wouldn't ask for a few quid towards his prepay SIM card.

[grixit]

The young Maurice was a a drinking partner of Oscar Wilde. Thats hardcore.

So how old is he now?

[notorial dissent]

The young Maurice was a a drinking partner of Oscar Wilde. Thats hardcore.

So how old is he now?

That would be a good trick unless he found some way to summon Wilde's ghost, since he died well over a century ago.

[SteveUK]

Sorry - Oliver Reed. Slip of the brain ! Maurice is in his 70s I think.

[Gregg]

The young Maurice was a a drinking partner of Oscar Wilde. Thats hardcore.

So how old is he now?

That would be a good trick unless he found some way to summon Wilde's ghost, since he died well over a century ago.

That's what THEY want you to think.

[Burnaby49]

Anyone who was an invited drinking companion of Oliver Reed has my respect. He was as hardcore as they get;

The Werewolf of London

“I do not live in the world of sobriety,” Oliver (Ollie if he was drunk) Reed pointedly said and he wasn’t making an idle boast. While many of the great drunks in this collection took great pride in appearing sober no matter how much they poured down, Oliver reveled in the behavior-enhancing aspect of drink. He would start a spree in the guise of a kind and courtly gentleman then, as the night (or day) progressed, he would transform, werewolf-like, into a wild beast utterly unburdened by society’s rules of conduct. He wouldn’t tolerate pretension or slacking off while in that exalted state — yawn or refuse a drink in his presence and he was likely to hurl you down the nearest flight of stairs.

He also employed alcohol as a tool: he claimed he couldn’t have done the nude wrestling scene with Alan Bates in the film Women in Love without the aid of a bottle of vodka, and when he had to lose weight for a role he went a strict vodka-only diet.

Oliver wasn’t noted for any glaring prejudices when it came to alcohol or women, though he generally preferred English beer, Irish whiskey, dark rum and well-built blondes.

A large powerful man, Oliver bulled his way through life without the weight of remorse or regrets. Except one. “My only regret,” he confessed, “is that I didn’t drink every pub dry and sleep with every woman on the planet.”

No one can say he didn’t try — his sexual exploits were legendary and on one occasion he sank an astonishing 106 pints of beer without break.

True Story: Oliver leapt from this mortal coil in a Maltese pub (now named in his honor) after vanquishing eight bottles of German beer, three bottles of Captain Morgan’s rum and sundry double Famous Grouse whiskies. After adding a final, farewell whisky to his $866 tab, he promptly died of a heart attack.

http://www.drunkard.com/56-fi-hemingway/

[SteveUK]

They seem suited to each other. Here’s Maurice trying to land his plane on President Bush’ farm. Then promptly tossed into the madhouse.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/7371790.stm

[ArthurWankspittle]

Anyone who was an invited drinking companion of Oliver Reed has my respect. He was as hardcore as they get;

I suspect the number of people who were drinking while in the same room as Ollie Reed numbers millions. The number who could keep up with him is in single figures.

[wserra]

dangerously driving animals

[notorial dissent]

Sorry - Oliver Reed. Slip of the brain ! Maurice is in his 70s I think.

Drinking with Reed could explain a lot of his behavior, wholesale and willful slaughter of brain cells, not to mention wanton liver destruction.

[notorial dissent]

dangerously driving animals

[Mike_p]

All hail mungo!

[eric]

how I spend a few hours each morning:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8IAKcV4jng
Actually the way I do it is with about 15 gilts in the pen plus an active boar which is the scary part. BTW pig surfing or riding is an acquired skill - heat detection, lifting your leg to minimize injury from a charging animal, or sitting an animal backwards to force it to move in the forward direction. And people wonder why I have no knees...

[Burnaby49]

how I spend a few hours each morning:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8IAKcV4jng
Actually the way I do it is with about 15 gilts in the pen plus an active boar which is the scary part. BTW pig surfing or riding is an acquired skill - heat detection, lifting your leg to minimize injury from a charging animal, or sitting an animal backwards to force it to move in the forward direction. And people wonder why I have no knees...

Looking back my career as an income tax auditor doesn't seem like a bad choice. Hostile taxpayers are a lot less dangerous than hostile pigs.

[Siegfried Shrink]

Joking aside, driving animals is pretty common in country areas. Sheep or cattle need to be moved from field to field or to the farm from time to time, one reason for a bit of caution round our winding country lanes is the chance of suddenly finding the road blocked by 40 tons of beef on the hoof or several years supply of lamb chops. A driver colliding with stock would generally be prosecuted, but it is not all one sided, it is possible for the drover (sic) moving the animals to do so in a dangerous manner, which could typically be driving them onto a highway without due care and consideration for oncoming traffic, or being reckless as to the existence of traffic, as might occour at a junction with a major road. Driving stock too fast, so as to lose control of them would be another offence of dangerously driving animals.

Even without an actual accident being caused, a policeman could make a case for dangerous driving if for example someone was doing single handed what prudence would say required two people or with sheep, one man and his dog to retain control. In practice a word of warning would be more likely than an actual prosecution.
Given the somewhat flamboyant nature of Mr. Kirk's exploits, I suspect he may have tried driving sheep by buzzing them from the air, or some other wacky antic, and given his fractious relationship with the local police I suspect any leeway that might have been extended to some other offender may not have been applied to Mr. Kirk.

[NYGman]

how I spend a few hours each morning:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8IAKcV4jng

Never thought you were actually a Korean woman, but who was I to assume Eric a male English name. Globalization, have to get used to it.

[dannyno]

The Times, 24 December 2016

Pilot to continue his crash course across Africa
Jerome Starkey, Kenya

He has crashed four times, been detained at gunpoint twice and dropped his sat-nav system down a drain, but a British pensioner attempting to fly the length of Africa insists that none of it is his fault.

Maurice Kirk, 71, blamed fellow aviators in the Vintage Air Rally for reneging on a promise to carry his luggage, which includes a tuxedo and top hat, in their planes.

The former drinking buddy of Oliver Reed, the late actor, said that he was forced to put his bags on his lap in his 1943 single-engine Piper Cub. He also had a long-range fuel tank installed above his head which meant he couldn't see his compass.

"It meant I was flying with an awful lot of extra baggage in the cockpit," he told The Times from Nairobi, where he is waiting for a new propellor to enable him to continue his journey south.

He has used his smartphone to navigate but said he struggled to find some airstrips. The former vet, from south Wales, had already crashed in Cannes on his way to the rally's start, when his engine cut out above the runway. "It did it again in Khartoum," he said.

He left his maps in a hotel room and dropped his GPS navigation system down a drain, but denied suggestions that he was reckless. Sam Rutherford, the rally's organiser, said that Mr Kirk was an "extremely good aviator" who could land in a small field on the side of a mountain, but he asked him to leave the Vintage Air Rally because he was dangerous.

"There is nothing that annoys me more than somebody who doesn't take basic preparations and precautions in order not to have someone else putting their lives at risk [with a search and rescue operation]," Mr Rutherford said.

He said Mr Kirk had crashed off the end of Khartoum's runway. Mr Kirk said that was nonsense and he had "cleared it on purpose to be out of the way". He has refused to leave the rally. Asked about Mr Rutherford, he said: "I hope I never see him again or I will punch him on the nose."

Mr Kirk, who was arrested in the US in 2008 after landing too close to George W Bush's Texas ranch, boasted about "flying below camel level" on a trip to Australia. He was rescued by the US Coastguard after crashing in the Caribbean.

Mr Kirk crashed twice in South Sudan. The first time he punctured a wheel. The second time he ripped part of the undercarriage and a propellor. None of this has dampened his determination to complete the 8,000-mile journey. The plane was loaded onto a truck and driven to Lokichoggio in northern Kenya.

"I just need two people to help me put the wings back on," Mr Kirk said. "If the engine runs I am heading straight to Cape Town."

Only 15 of the 22 aircraft that started the rally have made it to Cape Town. A Boeing-Stearman biplane crashed in Kenya. A Tiger Moth was blown into one of the support helicopters in Botswana, damaging both beyond repair.

Mr Kirk said he planned to ship his aircraft, Liberty Girl II, from Cape Town to the Falklands then fly the length of the Americas. He was banned from the US in 2008 but believes Donald Trump will welcome him in.

[dannyno]

Maurice generally comes to light in 2002 when he lost his vets license and was fined £35k.

He first crops up in my research in 1981, when he was 35. It was then reported that Southampton police were to hit him with 12 charges of reckless flying "resulting from a hang-gliding rally". According to the UPI agency report at the time:

For just $25, Capt. Maurice Kirk offers you a thrilling loop-the-loop in his old biplane. His very old wooden biplane. And if you don't mind little things like the propeller almost falling off, the woodworm in the frame, the glue coming unstuck in the wing joints and the bird's nest in the cockpit, you get your ''joy ride.''

Then in 1984, the following article appeared in the Guardian of 28 December 1984:

Mr Maurice Kirk, a veterinary surgeon gaoled after he attempted to make a citizen's arrest of a magistrate, was yesterday at the centre of a police investigation into a Guernsey prison fire.

When Mr Kirk was taken from his cell firemen found a burning mattress.

The fire is the latest bizarre incident in the history of the anti-authoritarian vet, who was due to be released on Monday after serving eight months for contempt of court.

The sentence was imposed by a Guernsey magistrate when Mr Kirk appeared before him charged with assault in April.

The Labour MP Mr George Foulkes has taken up the vet's case with the Home Office.

He said yesterday: 'Mr Kirk has had an unusual history. Most of the incidents he has been involved in have been a challenge to authority rather than any criminal acts. He was the guy who flew under Tower Bridge in his own light aircraft a few years back.'

Mr Foulkes says most of Mr Kirk's problems started when he moved to Guernsey: 'He had trouble getting his veterinary practice registered. Then he had trouble over getting a resident's permit, and that was followed by this very peculiar case of contempt of court.'

The Labour MP claims that the limited dimensions of civic life in Guernsey did not help Mr Kirk: 'He had a legal complaint over the delays in getting his vet's practice registered against the magistrate who heard his assault case. He tried to make a citizen's arrest during the hearing and was sentenced to eight months imprisonment.

'It was an unparalleled conviction and he went on hunger strike for 56 days in protest.' The assault charge appears to have been dropped during the case.

Then on 6 January 1988, The Times reported:

A veterinary surgeon's convictions for contempt of court and disorderly conduct made him unfit to practice, the disciplinary committee of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons was told in London yesterday.

Mr Maurice Kirk, of St Sampson's, Guernsey, had been sentenced to eight months' imprisonment for attempting a citizen's arrest of the acting magistrate in a case in which he was appearing as defendant in July, 1984, Mr James Watt, for the Royal College, said.

In July 1986, Mr Kirk was sentenced to two months' imprisonment for threatening the same court official, and abused Mr Vic Carey, the Attorney General of Guernsey, during an adjournment in another court case.

He was also fined Pounds 100 in March 1987 for interrupting proceedings at the Royal Court in Guernsey.

Mr Kirk, formerly known as the 'Flying Vet', appeared before the hearing in a knickerbocker suit presented to him by his friend, the actor Oliver Reed.

He also brought a testimonial from Mr Reed. 'The treatment he offered me was so successful', Mr Reed wrote of a wound that the vet had stitched for him, 'that I hardly show the scars'.

The hearing continues.

The following day, The Times, clearly enjoying proceedings, reported:

Guernsy's 'flying vet', Mr Maurice Kirk, was a decicated professional even though he had a criminal record, a disciplinary hearing was told yesterday.

The Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons have charged that Mr Kirk, aged 42, is unfit to practise because of his criminal convictions.

Yesterday, Mr Michael O'Gorman, a lifeboat man, describes how the vet, who used an inflatable dinghy to travel from the Channel Islands when weather conditions prevented him from flying in his vintage aircraft, had risked his life to operate on a dog.

'I was at Braye Harbour, Alderney, when I saw what looked like the remains of an inflatable boat. A strong force even gale had been blowing and the sea was rough', Mr O'Gorman said in a letter to the inquiry. He was told the vet had sailed from Guernsey, a 25-mile trip, to operate on a dog.

Later, Mr Kenneth Tuff, Registrar of Courts in Guernsey, told how Mr Kirk grappled with policemen and a deputy sheriff on the floor of a court after they tried to restrain him from making a citizen's arrest of the magistrate who was trying him on a motoring offence.

In another court case, Mr Kirk had abused Mr Vic Carey, Attorney-General of Guernsey, Mr Tuff said.

'A struggle ensured in which the policeman's helmet was dislodged and Mr Kirk lost his footwear.'

The hearing is expected to last another two days.

On Jan 8th, The Times reported that the previous day, Kirk had two of the charges against him dropped. He still faced a charge of being unfit to practise, to be heard in February and a charge of disgraceful conduct had yet to be heard. We also learn he had to sell all but one of his vintage aircraft in order to pay his costs .

The "unfit to practise" charge was heard on 23 February, The Guardian reporting on 24 February that the charge was upheld:

A man known to residents of Guernsey as Biggles the flying vet, was last night ruled as unfit to practise by the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons.

Mr Maurice Kirk, aged 42, of St Martins, Guernsey, was said to have brought the profession into disrepute after gaining a criminal record.

The RCVS panel heard that Mr Kirk tried to protest against what he perceived as the island's unfair judicial system by arresting a magistrate.

The incident came during a drink-driving case against Mr Kirk, when he left the dock and walked up to the magistrate to make a citizen's arrest. He was wrestled to the floor by two policemen and gaoled for eight months for contempt of court.
He has previously been imprisoned 30 times for his beliefs and had lodged 11 actions with the European Court of Human Rights.

The disciplinary hearing took more than an hour to make their decision, but have delayed making a further decision about his future until another charge is heard against him next month. Two additional charges were dismissed after the panel decided there was insufficient evidence.

After he heard of the decision, Mr Kirk said: 'I will not be beaten. I will beat them if it takes 10 years.' He said that he and his family had been mistreated by the 'feudal and vindictive' Guernsey authorities, and said 'I am pursuing my rights because I have had my business stolen from me and my livelihood put in jeopardy.' He added that he thought the island was run like a 'banana republic.'

Among his misdemeanours are charges that he has been drunk in charge of a plane, and flown a plane under Tower Bridge. He once told air traffic controllers that he was Captain Kirk of the Starship Cessna. When questioned, he sang the French national anthem over the airwaves. Once he landed his plane in a farmyard to ask for a light for his cigar.

But on 8th March 1988, the Times reported that sentence was postponed for 2 years:

Mr Maurice Kirk, the 'flying vet' who arrested a magistrate while a court was sitting and hanged an effigy of the Guernsey Solicitor General, won a two-year reprieve yesterday from the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons.

The College Disciplinary Committee found Mr Kirk guilty of being unfit to practise because of a contempt of court conviction in Guernsey in 1983 - for which he served 10 months in prison - but postponed sentence for two years to allow him to tay in practice.

He was cleared of disgraceful conduct for stringing up the gallows effigy.

Mr Kirk told the hearing the Guernsey authorities would take away his right to live on the island if he was prevented from practising.

Mr Peter Hignett, the committee chairman, told him: 'You prospects depend on your own behaviour'.

Mr Kirk said later: 'I look forward to improving the quality of life ffor those who cannot stand up for themselves.'

He intends to stand as an independent candidate for St Peter Port in the Guernsey elections on March 23.

Kirk was back in the news in 1990, after he attempted to book Guernsey's St James concert hall for performances of Julia Pascal's play "Theresa", which was "an account of how the island's wartime leaders helped send three Jewish women to their deaths". The hall's committee decided the play was too delicate a subject...

In 1997 he was in the news for landing his plane on a golf driving range (The Mirror, 2 August 1997):

A pilot stunned golfers by landing on a driving range - before strolling to the club house for a membership form.

Maurice Kirk, 52, claimed he was forced down by an oil leak.

But Michael King, boss of Oake Manor Golf Club, near Taunton, Somerset, said: "We think he was very irresponsible."

Maurice, of Barry, South Wales, said: "I circled twice and only landed when I was satisfied no one was playing golf.

"I popped in to ask about membership. No one complained to me at the time."

Later that year he was convicted of assaulting an aircraft engineer in a pub (Bristol Post, 15 Sept 1997):

Eccentric flying vet Maurice Kirk has vowed not to curb his daredevil lifestyle - despite his latest brush with the law.

The 52-year-old vet was convicted on Friday by Bristol magistrates of assaulting a 27-year-old aircraft engineer in the Plume of Feathers pub in Hotwells.

But outside the court, wearing his beloved knicker-bocker suit, the vet still protested his innocence and said he would not change his ways.

He said: "I have a louder voice then most people and that plus my appearance may make some people think I've an aggressive manner. I say I don't, but I don't suffer fools gladly and make my thoughts known. I don't apologise for that, and I'll not change for anyone."

His latest conviction, for kicking and punching Christopher Ebbs, is just the latest in a long history of bitter brushes with the law. Mr Kirk was dubbed the "flying vet" after using his own aircraft around the skies of Bristol and its surrounding countryside to visit sick animals.

His long list of convictions, which include flying while drunk and assaulting police officers, were brought to the attention of the Disciplinary Committee of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons.

But despite his numerous brushes with authority he has been allowed to continue to practise as a vet.

His good friend, actor Oliver Reed, wrote a letter to the committee, praising the work of the vet.

Mr Kirk, who now lives in Barry in South Wales, has family living in Clifton in Bristol.

In April 1998 he was charged with dangerous flying at a show in Taunton during the summer of 1997. That came to trial in August, during the course of which he once managed to spark a rescue alert after flying home and being observed to dive towards the Bristol channel, and once was two hours late due to having to make an emergency landing in a field due to engine problems with his 1943 Piper Cub aircraft.

Western Daily Press, 31 August 1998:

MAGISTRATES can rarely have experienced antics such as those performed in and out of court in the past week by aviator and vet Maurice Kirk.

The 53-year-old amateur pilot has bemused court officials, onlookers and the press as he conducted his own defence to an air navigation charge.

Mr Kirk, wearing a light-brown check suit with bow tie, and hair ruffled by the breezes of flying in to court each day, has kept court four in Taunton on tenterhooks as to what he will do next.

He vehemently denies flying within 500ft of people, vehicles or buildings at Sheppy's cider craft fair at Bradford-on-Tone, near Taunton, last year. The court has heard allegations that he performed an illegal aerobatic touch-and -go stunt to entertain the crowds at the craft fair.

Mr Kirk admits that later the same day he stunned golfers by landing at Oake golf course, near Taunton, because of engine trouble.

He started off the case in robust style on the first day, challenging the three magistrates by asking whether any of them was a Freemason or a member of a secret society.

Notes

Mr Kirk then demanded that at the end of each day the court clerk, Stuart Clark, should give him a copy of his handwritten notes.

The clerk said he had no obligation to give the pilot his notes but he assured him he would receive a typed-up copy of his notes at the end of the case.

After the first day in court Mr Kirk, who formerly had a practice in Taunton, sparked a sea rescue alert over the Bristol Channel as he flew to his home in Barry, South Wales, where he now has his practice.

People living on the coast at Minehead and Watchet reported seeing his historic 1943 Piper Cub light aircraft suddenly dive steeply and thought it had crashed into the sea.

Just as the coastguards were about to mount a major search of the sea Mr Kirk turned up at Cardiff airport with his son Alex in the passenger seat. The alert did not put Mr Kirk off bringing his son with him again to court on another day.

On that occasion the bored ten-year-old was hanging around the court waiting room most of the day with his fishing rod, comics and coins taking up the whole of one bench.

At one point Mr Kirk won an adjournment of the court so that he could go out and make some important defence telephone calls.

Emergency

On his way out the eccentric vet made an aside to the press and public saying he was just getting some bread as bait so that he could take his son fishing at the lunchtime recess.

On the fourth day the court was two hours late starting after Mr Kirk was forced to make an emergency landing in a field north of Taunton, because of engine problems.

When the case resumed he offered neither apology nor explanation for his lateness but instead demanded to know what had been said in his absence.

The case was adjourned after four days and will resume on October 14.