The Metropolitan Police still don't understand that photography is not a crime

I have blogged before about various incidents that have taken place between the Metropolitan Police and journalists before and unfortunately, despite ACPO issuing guidance for police officers, it appears some of them cannot read or perhaps it is the case they don't want to.

It states "Members of the public and the media do not need a permit to film or photograph in public places and police have no power to stop them filming or photographing incidents or police personnel."

It goes on to say under both Sections 43 and 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000, that "Officers do not have the power to delete digital images or destroy film at any point during a search."

My previous blog posts are Is photography the new crime? and Photography as a crime rears its head again if you want to read them.

From the National Union of Journalists website today;

NUJ member and photographer Carmen Valino has been threatened with arrest and forced to delete images.


Carmen Valino had images deleted from her camera by police and was threatened with arrest whilst photographing the scene of a shooting in Hackney, East London.

The incident happened on Saturday 31 July as Valino photographed a crime scene from outside the police cordon whilst on assignment from the Hackney Gazette.

She had identified herself as a journalist and showed her UK Press Card to the police.


A police Sergeant approached Valino telling her that she was disrupting a police investigation and to hand over her camera. After protesting to the Sergeant that she was in a public place, outside the cordon he had no right to take her camera, he grabbed her wrist and pulled out his handcuffs. Before he could put the cuffs on she handed him her camera. He then left for five minutes before coming back, bringing Valino inside the cordon and asking her to show him the images and deleting them. Valino was told that she could come back in a few hours to photograph the scene.

This incident highlights how police are still not following the law or the agreed ACPO Media Guidelines as highlighted at the top of this post.

Surely at some point this has to stop, the police have got to stop abusing their powers and perhaps now it is the time for the IPCC to investigate?

Photography as a crime rears its head again

Lat December I wrote a blog post Is photography the new crime? mainly because the Metropolitan Police Service had issued guidance to its Officers, which on the whole seemed to be being ignored.

Well this blog post is two fold, one is to celebrate the victory of journalists Marc Vallée and Jason Parkinson who have both received £3500 compensation each after police handling a protest outside the Greek Embassy prevented them from filming.

You would therefore now assume that these incidents would stop, unfortunately you could not be further from the truth.

The second aspect of this post is to highlight the incident from the weekend in Romford involving yet another journalist, Jules Mattsson and the Metropolitan Police who still don't seem to understand the guidance that has been issued to them as highlighted in my blog post Is photography the new crime?

Jules Mattsson was trying to cover an Armed Forces Day parade in Romford when ill trained and ill informed Metropolitan Police Officers, including an Inspector detain him, push him down stairs and generally act like very silly people while claiming he was being prevented from working for all sorts of reasons, all wrong.

The Romford Incident just shows that Police training is urgently needed before something goes horribly wrong!  Do watch the video on the blog.

This surely shows that the Police are still dealing with photographers/journalists in a far too heavy handed manner?

My review of 2009 - my top twelve blog posts

2009 for me personally has been a hard year, not just with elections and work but not selling our old flat in Dartford, my partner Roger not able to get a job for a year, finding out my Mum had pancreatic cancer, closely followed by her death only a matter of weeks later, finding out a close friend died in May, losing two good friends in December and then at 4.20am this morning on her birthday, Roger's Nan lost her fight with cancer - 2009 f**k off, you've been shit!

So, I sat here and wondered how to remember this year, I finally decided to do my review by favourite monthly blog post.

A mixture of political and personal, do enjoy.

January - Tavish TV - Save our Forests January saw the Scottish Liberal Democrats turn their campaigning might on the SNP who were planning to sell off 25% of Scotland's forests. The Liberal Democrats and many environmental charities united to fight the SNP - finally in March we won!

February - Lost - one marked register. One owner, no history. February saw the story of the Sheriff's Office who lost the marked register for the Glenrothes by-election.

March - Baby's details on National DNA database The fact that the DNA of a baby under one year old has been stored on the police national database, is utterly scandalous and Jacqui Smith MP should be ashamed of herself and the Police.

April - A message for Nigel Griffiths MP and the Labour Party The Edinburgh Labour MP (until the election) blamed Edinburgh City Council for the closure of the capital's Post Offices. Utter crap Mr Griffiths, look in the mirror and along your benches, the Labour Party has closed even more Post Offices than the Conservatives did in their last term in government!

May - Labour fall to third place for first time in 22 years Wow, no-one ever saw this coming really where the governing party, currently Labour fall to third place in the polls, with the Conservatives on 40%, Liberal Democrats on 25% and Labour on 22%.

Bonus month - The best advert, ever!

June - Queen's Birthday Honours list My sister's boyfriend John gets a Royal Victorian Medal in this years Birthday Honours List, after 16 years of continuous service working for the Royal Family.

July - Police Officer to face prosecution over deaths of police dogs I have blogged a few times about this awful case of animal cruelty, it all went very quiet after this part but satisfaction in his prosecution - utterly appalling that a serving police officer allowed this to happen.

August - I really couldn't pick just one, so I have gone for three this month Tories claim homophobia doesn't exist, Le Grand Bleu yacht leaves Leith Harbour and Megrahi and MacAskill.

September - 8inch penis is average, Glasgow men are above average It really does speak for itself, Glasgow boys are bigger.

October - Caroline Righton and the Tory smear campaign This was an appalling attempt by a Conservative candidate to smear a Liberal Democrat candidate - it failed and shows that not all of David Cameron's A listers should be candidates.

November - John Lamont MSP is the most expensive MSP and sticks two fingers up to Cameron and the Kelly Report. My review of the year couldn't ignore John bubbles Lamont.

December - Is taking a photo of a building a crime? Why the Police are taking this so serious, god only knows but it really is quite pathetic and they need to calm down and react appropriately.

Well, that is the summary of my year via my blog, onwards and upwards for 2010, it's going to be a very busy year.

Is photography the new crime?

There is, rightly so, a lot of anger at the moment about the over the top tactics taken by some police officers when confronted with a member of the public armed with.........wait for it, a camera! Yes, a camera.

Among those who appear to have been targeted by the Metropolitan police is Grant Smith, one of the country's leading architectural photographers, who was apprehended by seven, yes seven, police officers while taking pictures of a church in the City of London.

The police defended this over the top action in the Daily Telegraph, "In response to its treatment of photographers, the City of London Police earlier this month released details of an arrest made by officers who spotted a man filming on his mobile phone, which it said had helped to avert a terrorist attack on the capital."

"Footage shot on the Algerian man's Nokia N95 mobile phone showed he had filmed at railway and tube stations and shopping centres. Senior officers said it was a "hostile reconnaissance" video."

That doesn't mean everyone with a mobile phone or a camera is a terrorist.

I'm sorry, but the advice given by the Metropolitan Police Service is very clear and yet again it's officers who apprehended Grant Smith have not heeded it nor sought clarification.

Even The Royal Photographic Society has got involved in this latest drama issuing advice not just to it's Members but to the public as well, they also include a link to the Metropolitan Police Service websites photography advice page, where it says "Members of the public and the media do not need a permit to film or photograph in public places and police have no power to stop them filming or photographing incidents or police personnel."

It goes on to say under both Sections 43 and 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000, that "Officers do not have the power to delete digital images or destroy film at any point during a search."

It appears, more in London than elsewhere (so far) that police officers and even more so, police community support officers are getting a little bit power crazy and don't fully understand the law, so much that in yesterdays Sunday Telegraph 365 of Britain's most eminent photographers signed a letter asking for a change in anti-terrorist legislation.

Paul Lewis, a journalist for The Guardian, shows in this video clip that the police don't understand the legislation fully and certainly didn't follow this piece of advice from their own guidance - "However, where it is clear that the person being searched is a journalist, officers should exercise caution before viewing images as images acquired or created for the purposes of journalism may constitute journalistic material and should not be viewed without a Court Order."

When I took this photo in Edinburgh earlier this year, this new piece of legislation had only just come into force, I dread to think what may have happened, as I am not a journalist nor is that interesting to anyone but me.














It was outside the Edinburgh International Conference Centre and it was the AGM of the Royal Bank of Scotland and students from Edinburgh Universities were protesting about the bank sweeping their involvement in fossil fuels under the carpet.

I took the photo of the policeman taking a photo of the protesters.

I did tell you it wasn't that interesting, but it is to me and no, I am not a terrorist.