A SOUTH Essex businessman was threatened with a £540,000 fine after being accused of shining laser pens at planes.

Eddie Napp, 46, and his eldest son, 15, were questioned by Spanish police while on holiday earlier this month in Malaga.

An off-duty officer claimed that he spotted them shining beams from their balcony at the Sol Don Pablo Hotel in Torremolinos.

Mr Napp, who runs Napp Brothers Surfacing and is a qualified pilot himself, said the hotel was not even near the airport and he did nothing wrong. He said: “It just seems like it’s been blown out of all proportion.”

Spanish police claimed three pilots complained about green lasers as they landed at Malaga Airport.

Mr Napp said he had purchased lasers from the hotel shop and admitted using them on the balcony, but he denied pointing them at planes. He said: “‘We weren’t pointing them at planes, we were just messing about pointing them down at the floor.

“They were shone into the air just to see how far they got when we initially got them. The kids were just playing with them.”

The father-of-two has an airfield with space for seven small aircraft at Brock Farm, in Stock, and said he understands the dangers of laser pens.

He said: “I do appreciate if there’s a pilot trying to land his plane and there’s a laser pen, it’s going to cause problems, it’s obvious. We were about five miles away from the airport. The only planes we could ever see from the hotel were taking off, or the ones flying at 30,000 feet going somewhere else.”

The pair were taken to a police station, which Mr Napp said “put a bit of a dampener” on the holiday, but he was not arrested or charged and he is not on bail. However, Spanish police say they could still issue a huge fine. A spokesman for Spanish National Police said: “They have been told they may be fined between €30,000 (£27,000) and €600,000 (£540,000) for a very serious breach of Spain’s Citizen Security Law.’

“An off-duty officer raised the alarm. He was staying at the same hotel as the British nationals and saw two men shining lasers from a room terrace about 11pm on Tuesday, August 8 at planes preparing to land at Malaga airport.”