Drone pilot was trespassing at Cork's Stryker plant

Stryker's medical devices facility in Anngrove, Carrigtwohill, Co Cork.

A drone pilot from Waterford who intended to take aerial imagery of a major manufacturing plant in East Cork was trespassing, a court has found.

Prosecuting, Inspector Tony O’Sullivan told Midleton District Court that on August 16 last year, drone pilot Kieran Jones, aged 54, of 9 Deerpark, Clonlea Power, Co Waterford, informed staff at the Stryker medical devices facility in Anngrove, Carrigtwohill, Co Cork, that he would be flying his drone over the property and recording video footage.

Security officer Gerard Murray said Mr Jones came to his office near the reception area of the building and told him he would be gathering drone footage around the site. He said Mr Jones did not ask for permission.

Mr Murray said there had been a fatal accident at the facility a few months previously which had led to unwanted media attention. He said that staff were particularly sensitive at the time and management had specifically told him that photography on the site was not permitted.

'Very aggressive'

Mr Murray informed Mr Jones of the policy and said he became “very aggressive”. Mr Murray said Mr Jones began recording him on a phone and he asked him to stop and he also asked him to remove the footage at which point Mr Jones became more aggressive. Mr Murray called his superiors and was shortly joined by the facility manager and health and safety officer, Yvonne O’Shea.

Mr Murray said that Mr Jones became “very agitated” and refused to listen to any of the Stryker staff who informed him he was trespassing. He said that he felt threatened and intimidated and that he had a genuine fear for his safety and that of his colleagues.

Yvonne O’Shea said when she arrived at the reception Mr Jones was wearing a backpack and holding a selfie stick with a mobile phone on the end of it. She said Mr Jones refused to tell her his name and would not leave the building despite being told he was trespassing. Gardaí were called.

Garda Lorraine Manning told the court that when she arrived at Stryker, Mr Jones refused to tell her his name and address. She informed him he was trespassing and told him she would have to arrest him. 

Mr Jones told the court that he was fully insured and was breaking no laws by flying the drone over the Stryker plant and would have operated it while standing on a public footpath. He said that he went into the building to inform the company of what he was doing, he added that he had informed gardaí in Cobh the previous day of what he intended to do.

Solar panels

Mr Jones said the purpose of the drone flight was to observe solar panels on the roofs of buildings and “gather statistics for health and safety purposes” which he provided to an unnamed person for “statistical purposes”. When asked by Insp O’Sullivan if he could provide any evidence that he was counting solar panels, Mr Jones said he could not.

Judge Colm Roberts said that the court had found the facts proven that Mr Jones did trespass in a manner likely to cause fear in another person. He said: “If he wanted to avoid causing a difficulty the obvious thing to do would be to seek the permission of the property owner. There seems to be a certain obstinance here, a certain sense of entitlement.” 

The judge said he was inclined to see if Mr Jones could be dealt with by way of supervision by the probation service and a fine and adjourned the case until May 23.