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Private schools accused of 'cheating GCSE system to get better results'<\/a><\/p>\nHowever, he said he could not rule out future disruption of the same kind.<\/p>\n
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Police have not yet found the drone used to disrupt around 1,000 flights last week and do not know its model, he said.<\/p>\n
Police have ruled out that two drones found near the airport had any involvement.<\/p>\n
Mr York said a Sussex officer who suggested last week that police were not sure whether there was a drone flying at Gatwick at all, was simply trying to explain the investigative approach taken by the force.<\/p>\n
He said: \u2018I am absolutely certain that there was a drone flying throughout the period that the airport was closed.\u2019<\/p>\n
Police received 115 reports of sightings in the area, including 92 which have been confirmed as coming from \u2018credible people\u2019, said Mr York.<\/p>\n
But he told Today: \u2018Of course, we will have launched our own Sussex Police drones at the time with a view to investigate, with a view to engage, with a view to survey the area looking for the drone, so there could be some level of confusion there.\u2019<\/p>\n
Describing the police investigation as \u2018incredibly thorough\u2019, he said: \u2018I don\u2019t think we have found the drone responsible for this at this time.<\/p>\n
\u2018I think the fact that we have found two drones so far as a result of this does show the extent of the search that has been carried out. I am led to believe that we are able to rule those drones out of this investigation at this time.\u2019<\/p>\n
The officer also said he felt \u2018really sorry\u2019 for Paul Gait and Elaine Kirk, from Crawley, West Sussex, who were held for 36 hours before being cleared of responsibility for the disruption.<\/p>\n Advertisement Advertisement <\/p>\n But said the grounds for their arrest were \u2018well founded\u2019.<\/p>\n The couple have said they felt \u2018violated\u2019 by their lengthy questioning, the search of their home and the way in which their identities became public.<\/p>\n Mr York defended the decision to hold Mr Gait for an extended period, despite his employer saying he was at work during the drone flights.<\/p>\n The chief said: \u2018I\u2019m really sorry for what he has experienced and the feeling of violation around it.<\/p>\n \u2018I am really sorry for what he went through, but the reason why we held him was so that we could dispel everything in the first instance. What might have been worse as an experience for him would have been to be released under investigation still.<\/p>\n \u2018We are able to exhaust all our lines of inquiry on that first instance and, however hard it is, able to release him from police custody saying he is no longer a suspect in this line of inquiry.<\/p>\n \u2018That\u2019s why we took the time \u2013 in order to allow him the best opportunity to put his life back on the rails.\u2019<\/p>\n Mr York declined to discuss the kind of military technology installed at Gatwick since the drone flights.<\/p>\n But he told Today: \u2018The systems that are in place today are dramatically different to what was in place a week ago.\u2019<\/p>\n Advertisement <\/p>\n Asked whether he could rule out a repeat of last week\u2019s disruption, Mr York said: \u2018I don\u2019t think you can ever rule out anything happening again.<\/p>\n \u2018But what we can say is what is at the heart of this is ensuring it is safe for the aircraft to take off, and that\u2019s the different position that Gatwick Airport finds itself in today.\u2019<\/p>\n In a statement issued by the force on Saturday afternoon, he also said officers were using \u2018all available resource\u2019 to identify the culprits and had carried out more than 1,000 house-to-house enquiries as part of the investigation.<\/p>\n After Mr York\u2019s comments earlier in the day, the statement reiterated that the illegal drone activity which led to widespread travel disruption was not caused by a police device.<\/p>\n If you have a story for our news team, email us at webnews@metro.co.uk.<\/p>\n You can also follow us on Facebook<\/a> and Twitter<\/a>.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t\t Advertisement<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Some of the sightings of drones which kept Gatwick Airport on shutdown may have been the police\u2019s own craft, a police chief has admitted.<\/p>\n Giles York insisted he is \u2018absolutely certain\u2019 a drone was flying near runways at the London airport from 19 to 21 December when it was repeatedly closed \u2013 affecting hundreds of thousands of people.<\/p>\n But he acknowledged there may have been some \u2018confusion\u2019 caused by his force launching its own drones in the hunt for the rogue craft.<\/p>\n Speaking to BBC Radio 4\u2019s Today programme, Mr York confirmed military technology had been installed at Gatwick following last week\u2019s incident, \u2018dramatically\u2019 improving security at the airport.<\/p>\n Private schools accused of 'cheating GCSE system to get better results'However, he said he could not rule out future disruption of the same kind.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Advertisement Police have ruled out tha..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17569,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mdpair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17568","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mdpair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mdpair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mdpair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mdpair.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17568"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mdpair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17568\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mdpair.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mdpair.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mdpair.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Great-grandmother, 88, dies 'after being flung from wheelchair when it hit pothole'<\/a><\/p>\n \t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\tGot a story for Metro.co.uk?\t\t\t<\/h2>\n
\nPolice have not yet found the drone used to disrupt around 1,000 flights last week and do not know its model, he said.<\/p>\n