This is legal. End of story.
I’m really baffled by this:
The Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson has reaffirmed street photography rights at a Metropolitan Police Authority Committee meeting last week, but was unable to guarantee that all police officers would interpret the law in the right way.
Sir Paul, are you perhaps implying that all police officers are congenital idiots? Or that they are wilfully stupid?
Just how difficult can it possibly be to tell all police officers that taking photographs is a perfectly legal activity?
I am happy to offer Sir Paul some free advice that I can guarantee will be effective in addressing the apparent stupidity and or intransigence of his force: the next time someone makes a complaint about a policeman harassing an innocent photographer, sack the policeman in question. Repeat as necessary. I can assure you it will not be necessary to do this more than once or twice.
But I suspect the truth of the matter is that the problem, as ever, resides at the top of the tree. The head of the Metropolitan Police Force is reluctant to enforce a fairly straightforward rule because Sir Paul himself doesn’t think that people should be able to take photos (or videos) willy-nilly, lest they capture something embarrassing. This is the only conclusion I can come to about Sir Paul’s reluctance to guarantee that police officers interpret the law in the right way.
And I’m afraid there is little that the average photographer can do about that.
TJW is an itinerant blogger who lives in East Angular. He grew up as a fascist, mellowed into a Tory and was converted to anarchism in his middle age by the Devil's Kitchen.
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I know I’m not the brightest star in the firmament and my knowledge of the law is pretty weak, but aren’t JUDGES supposed to interpret the law, not some Dirty Harry wannabe with an itchy trigger finger and a megalomania complex, only too ready to kill people and hide behind a tarnished badge?
If some of Sir Paul’s Finest can’t interpret the law concerning murder properly, ie don’t kill innocent passers-by, then it’s too much to expect an understanding of photography in public.
Actually, there IS something photographers (and all of us) can do – refuse to accept it. When challenged, refer to the law. Refuse to agree that it’s against the law, refuse to co-operate, and complain, complain, complain.
Eventually, the message will filter through to even the dimmest cop that it’s not worth the hassle.
the other thing we can do is stage mass-photography events
What’s next? Sketching? Could one expect to be quizzed when wielding some keenly-sharpened pencils and making recogniseable marks on a pad? Where does the law stand on using dangerous chalk-pastels to make lifelike sketches of the public and police alike? Heaven forbid that pen and ink should be employed to make dangerous and difficult line drawings. And as for a horrid solvent such as turpentine (in the case of an oil paint or oil pastel), can the boys in blue be relied upon to wade in and confiscate or destroy any surface upon which such undesirable substances have been used? Eh?
“What
* jaw drops”
(false teeth fall out and a lump of Steradent sticks itself to Smudd’s tabard top)
I am astonished.
Don’t tell me – origami, Lego and balloon-sculpture have all led to arrests???????
(replying to one’s own post – gggnuuuh, but..)
Come to think of it, how dangerous could those ‘kids’-parties-a-speciality-balloon-animals’ people be if they set their mind to making inflated models of the MI-whatever building OR rendering balloon depictions of Mr Ian Tomlinson’s brush with the police? If photographers can be challenged, then they should be challenged too.
Neither do I doubt that an expert in Origami could fashion a detailed 3-D plan of the guards and their movements if they were to fold like fury outside Buckingham Palace on a dry day. I shudder to think what could happen if it were to fall into the wrong hands: apprehend those paper-folders, just in case!
And I daren’t even think what could be done with a simple starter pack of Lego if the block-builder had badness in mind…. best make carrying any kind of kids’ construction kit in public an offence against the state.
Don’t forget those evil fiends, the Mime Artists. With their clever ability to covertly recreate the shape and dimensions of any building or prominent person by the deft, adroit movement of a white gloved hand and embellished by the ham acting face gestures of a white powdered face.
The thought of these monsters being free to silently gesticulate strikes fear into our very hearts.
“Keenly-sharpened pencils”
Well they would get you straight away on having an offensive weapon, naturally. The other charges might follow if you didn’t meekly bow your head and confess.
Don’t believe me? Ask the joiner who got arrested when a search of his van turned up a Stanley knife. Locking blade, don’cha know, guv. Illegal that is – and a strict liability offence too – no way out.
See here: http://youve-been-cromwelled.org/?p=1079
I know I posted it the other day, however it is a developing story. I’m off to Victoria Station tomorrow, rather conveniently they are having one of their Meet the Manager events. I’ve had early confirmation from a journalist that they will be joining me, firstly to get more information on my ordeal, and hopefully secondly they’ll be taking a record of the questions I ask the Manager and their answers.
I’ve finally heard back from the train company and as usual I’ve had a fob off. That won’t stop me though
If anyone is in the area between 8-10am tomorrow morning feel free to join me and ask awkward questions of the manager.
Cheers
Olly
Baby steps.
looking forward to the update – are you taking your camera?
I didn’t think of that actually….. Good idea
Or get a friend with a camcorder and post the result on youtube.
…are you perhaps implying that all police officers are congenital idiots?
You can get some useful insights on this by browsing the comments on a police blog!
Go to http://photographernotaterrorist.org/ and download the Bust Card and keep it with your camera at all times.
A lot of these incidents have been raised in the photography journals.
More often than not the incidents starts with a private security guard or PCSO with nothing to do except direct tourists spots a man with a tripod. Small IQ computes “Terrorist photographing public buildings to reveal security loopholes!”. Man with tripod is challenged, and quite rightly tells the guard/PCSO to piss off. PCSO loses face, and calls for real police backup. Real police arrive, and have to chose between “supporting the side” and supporting beardy irate photographer. Photographer also tells the real police to piss off too, and is promptly arrested, taken to police cells, camera confiscated (for evidence) ,searched and questioned for four hours, before eventually being released.
Its the nitty gritty of real life, not the theory of top down communications from the Cheif Constable. Plastic-policemen don’t know anything, nor do pricvate security guards.
Totally agree!
As someone who is little more than a Box Brownie Snapper I have never had the feeling that I was worthy of being duffed up by the Police, except in the UK.
I mean China, Russia, sub Saharan Africa, S Africa, Asia etc!
The Police in the UK are politicised.
Just who or what do they think they are protecting and why?
Anna, how come you haven’t scanned my recent portfolio available to you on Facebook?
Sorry Thadd
If you want to ask Anna she should give you they Facebook details, if you want.
On sketching, the pseudo-cops of the Rail Enforcement fraternity are already one step ahead of the game and have already inconvenienced one rail user whom they considered was writing some very suspicious things.
http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/newshome/Musician39s-gig-list-deemed-suspicious.6159440.jp
Pseudo-cops. Very nasty creatures indeed.
Does this mean that Paul Stephenson considers ignorance of the law to be a valid defence for all of us? If not, why not?
Just another example of the promotion to the rank of chief officer of police of a man from the ranks ; it
I ought perhaps to have alluded to the most glaring example of what I was describing : the appointment of Mr. Tony Hall as chief executive of B.P. Yes, he should be fired but
I think you might mean Tony Haywood rather than Tony Hall, the erstwhile BBC apparatchik and latterly Royal Opera House supremo unless the former editor of Isis has moved on again?
But I do agree with your earlier point and always smiled when Ian Blair was accorded the label of “intellectual” which I think in this context only meant that his lips didn’t move when he was reading.
Yes, of course, Mick ; I do apologize : a slipping clutch band in what I please to call my mind.
??