Pilot in clear over rival’s aircraft sabotage

Man accused of aircraft tampering has his case thrown out of court because of insufficient evidence.

Josh Hoch has had serious charges of aircraft tampering thrown out of court but still faces hundreds of fraud charges, over taxpayer-funded charter flights.

Charges against a pilot accused of trying to sabotage his rivals’ aircraft by contaminating the fuel supply have been dropped ­because of insufficient evidence.

Josh Hoch, 35, was facing a maximum life sentence for charges of aircraft tampering, first laid in January 2017. It followed a ­series of incidents at Mount Isa Airport in which glass beads, paste and other contaminants were discovered in the fuel tanks of five aircraft, two of which were involved in forced landings.

Mr Hoch’s Supreme Court trial began in Townsville on March 1 and was expected to run for three weeks. The Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions had compiled a 120,000-page brief of evidence, and produced several witnesses who claimed Mr Hoch contaminated their aircraft fuel supply to reduce competition for contracts.

But a week into the trial, judge James Henry dismissed the jury, telling them the “case had been dropped”. He said evidence linking Mr Hoch to the alleged crimes was lacking, and it had been ­“officially concluded it was not sufficient to pursue a case”.

“There was no sighting of him in the relevant area at the relevant time to the exclusion of other possible contenders to say he must have done it,” Justice Henry said. “The closest we got was that he watched his competition from time to time. That was never going to be enough.”

Justice Henry said he did not know why the prosecution ­realised only during the trial there was not enough evidence.

A spokesman for the ODPP said “an issue arose during the trial that led to a determination that we no longer had reasonable prospect of success”.

Numerous charges against Mr Hoch are still outstanding, ­including allegations he defrauded the commonwealth by operating charter flights for politicians including Bob and Robbie Katter despite not having the ­appropriate licence.

The flights were alleged to have taken place over a three-year period, during which Mr Hoch was audited by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority and ­issued with an air operators’ ­certificate.

Mr Hoch’s lawyer, Michael Spearman, said CASA had been made aware of the allegations at the time of the audit and found no reason to ground his client.

Action was taken to cancel his AOC after charges were laid against Mr Hoch, who now works as a diesel fitter.

Mr Spearman said the matter had destroyed his client’s life, and left him with a legal bill he would never be able to pay. “It’s bittersweet,” Mr Spearman said. “I would like to think Josh felt vindicated, but his life, his business, has been destroyed.”

He suggested the charges were borne out of “sour grapes” over Mr Hoch’s success in obtaining a lucrative fly-in, fly-out contract, which was reflected in the “poisonous” testimony of several witnesses.