Police Stop and Search

Abuse of Police Powers and diminishing Human Rights

Last Saturday I was in London looking for interesting doors to photograph and went to the Whitechaple area that has an interesting mix of old architecture with a backdrop of very modern buildings.

I just wondered the streets seeing what I could find with a camera around my neck and had no precise plan or agenda.

I had found several already in the bag and eventually spotted some run-down buildings behind a school and worked my way around to them looking for the street it was on, which I found without to much effort.

One door was painted badly and the side window was missing its glass and had been replaced with beer cans. I went down a narrow side street and there was a sofa on the pavement that I used while I head a drink. After a short rest and refreshment I completed circling the building by going around the block and barley noticed a police van parked up that appeared empty.

I carried on with my mystery tour not finding much of interest in the area I was now in and an hour later I was back near the street with the run-down building and decided to take a seat at the bus stop while I re-thought my non existent plan.

I noticed two police officers come out of the side road I had previously been on and where the police van had been parked up, one a male police sergeant and a WPC.
They started to watch me and at first it didn't bother me, I was trying to work out what they were doing. Then they started to make notes while looking at me they must have been there for about five minutes some other people passed that they half seemed interested in. "May be they were looking for a suspect?" I thought to myself when the police backed of and went back, thinking no more of it, I went back to re-organising myself and went into chimp mode while I looked at what I had got on the camera's playback feature.

I looked up and now saw a few people had gathered and started to look down the street, something was happening; so I got of my perch and had a nose, I could see nothing of interest but about five or six police officers near the van they had parked and the two police officers I had seen earlier about fifty yards down the road from where I was stood, but on the other side.

I decided to take a walk down a bit further to get a better view, it was not as if the gathered crowd were discussing what they had seen, there was no excitement, just curiosity as to why there were police.

As I got to about forty to forty five yards the police sergeant came over and intercepted me. He asked what I had been doing, "photographing doors!" came the reply with half a smile on my face as I knew he was wanting a much better understanding of why was I photographing doors, the response came "doors" he said with a puzzled look on his face. I explained further and in detail which he accepted and asked me for some identification.

I pulled out my Press Card for him and he looked at the details in detail "odd I thought, normally its just a quick glance" I was expecting this to go all the way and ask for my card to be verified by the Gatekeeper, which would have been a first "what was my verification number"...concentrating hard and trying to bring it up from the depths of my mind, while he studded it.

Then a realisation of understanding hit me as I spotted a Police Photographer at the bottom of the street, it was a FIT team (Forward Intelligence Team) that collect information on things like football gangs, Animal Rights and just about any one who goes on a demonstration or protest, blanket intelligence gathering is what they do as far as I am aware.

I had seen them before and recently at the Climate Camp protest at Heathrow and they have never shown a blind bit of interest in me and they have often nodded goodbye when I was bugging out, I have been stopped and searched before too, a quick look in my camera bag and a flash of my press card and that's been it.

The police sergeant asked me for my address and I asked him why he needed it, his reply was a shock "I can't remember the exact words as he had instantly turned from a curios cop to nasty cop in the blink of an eye, and I was still in shock over the change" but he was threatening to arrest me and pointed out that my camera gear will be seized as evidence to which will take considerable time to get back.

I offered to show him what pictures that were on there, he wasn't interested, replying I could have switched memory cards or deleted the images earlier (I assume he was referring to when I was at the bus stop) "Images of what I asked?" in a demanding and raised tone; all I got was silence and a glaring stare...
Eventually I responded that if he phoned the verification line for the press card he could confirm my details, a further silence and glare followed...the WPC had now crossed the road ready to back him up as she was stood to my half right

I had now been stood there for about ten minutes while the sergeant and the WPC were making notes about me from across the road as they were filling out the search form, that he did not want to give me.

The police photographer was photographing people at the bottom of the street and occasionally trying to get a shot of me from the bottom of the street on a 80-400mm zoom, that I did my best to deny him (it was all I could do as a protest at the time) he eventually realised I was serious when I said I wanted a copy of the form that he was probably kicking himself for by telling me I was entitled to a copy.

He explained briefly the form and gave it to me and headed down the street to the other police assembled as I stood reading what he had written.

Under the heading 'Grounds for Search or Reason for Stop' he had filled in "Subject in possession on long lens Nikon camera and paying close attention to police asked why he was doing that he accounted for his whereabouts and actions" That's it... me paying close attention to the police...no actually it was the other way around....had I taken any photos of the police, no

So carrying a Nikon with a medium lens was cause for a stop and search, now that is extremism in my book, just what are you allowed to carry and wear these days

I waked down to the end of the street where the police photographer was. There was a bunch of people, normal and respectable looking, waiting to get in I asked them what was happening, "One replied it was a public meeting against an arms fair."

Peace protesters, how ironic I thought that these people are trying to stop the arms trading, arms that eventually end up in the hands of terrorists potential enemies, that the police and security services try to find and stop, yet the police are trying to intimidate the peace protesters from trying to get arms trading stopped.

What a Wonderful World