POLICE STOP SPARKS GP CALL-OUT
A Photography enthusiast says he was made to feel like a criminal and had to call a doctor out after police stopped him filming in a Cheshire park.
The 58-year-old man has pledged to never to return to Town Hall Park in
Runcorn after being treated like a 'suspected paedophile', according to the
Runcorn and
Widnes Weekly News.
It is understood that a member of the public had made a complaint to a Police Community Support Officer (
PCSO) after the photographer was seen near a children's play area. The photographer, who declined to be named to avoid 'further humiliation', told the newspaper. 'I've been taking photographs there for 35 years. I was filming when the
PCSO told me to stop'.
The
PCSO reportedly asked him for ID, and ran his name through a computer, but declined to view the captured images. The photo enthusiast was told that if any more complaints were made he would be arrested and his camera gear seized. 'I feel vilified and persecuted even though I was just a private citizen going about my business,' said the photographer. "When I went home I was in shock and had to call the GP out".
A police spokesman told AP: 'A local police community support officer was on patrol in the park on Friday (11 September). "Whilst on patrol he saw a man filming near the children's play area and advised how his actions could be construed. At no point was the man told to stop filming".
From an article in Amateur Photographer magazine, 3 October 2009.Footnote:
The whole ruddy World has gone mad. I think that I will have to start wearing a vest/bib with the words "I am a Photographer, Not a Terrorist nor a Paedophile, and it is Not a Crime to take Photographs in a Public Place". Or would that make me more of a target for the "Mentally Retarded Moron's" that I have already encountered locally on my photographic travels and daily business.
Another image from the "Clipper Race". All ten yachts were in the Marina before the start of the race and they drew huge crowds (well not in this photo).
Another image from my recent 'Flora' range, again it is a gerboa flower head, lit by natural light and using a Close-up filter fitted to a 50mm lens.
From the "Clipper Round the World Race". When all the yachts were in Hull Marina for 6 days before the start of the race. Here a crew member of "Lighting Bolt" is high up in the boat's rigging. In the background is one of the few remaining original (now refurbished) old Warehouses - 'Warehouse 13', now a residential block.
This image is of a final resting place of someone in Undercliffe Cemetery. An old Victorian Cemetery (and Nature Reserve) which is the final resting place for many of the wealthy "Victorian Wool Barons" and their families.
The late afternoon summer sun casts and creates shadows of these metal hand railings onto the concrete paving of the promenade.
A orange Gerboa flower head is featured in this still-life study. I was experimenting using a set of close-up filters fitted to a 50 mm standard lens (both of which I should really use more often). Lit by natural light, coming in from a south facing window.
The hull of a boat is featured in this image. In the harbour at this popular North East coastal town and fishing port.
A still-life study, shot in the studio. Which features a loaned photograph of six soldiers from a signals unit of the British Army, who have just returned home to Hull after being evacuated from the beaches of Dunkirk in 1940. The photograph was loaned to me by the son of the soldier (second from the left).
Reeds in the foreground give way to wind swept ripples upon the water, then the reflection of the footbridge in the water before the footbridge itself.
In the depths of the New Forest, a small river winds it's way through the landscape.
The shadows of several trees are reflected in the gleaming paintwork of this car. Quiet symbolic this image I think, you have the car (one of the biggest pollution causer's) and the reflection of the trees which counter-act this pollution by absorbing noxious gasses.
A white coloured vegetable oil silo and steps leading up to the top are featured in this shot, with a fluffy white cloud just creeping from behind the silo in the foreground and into view.
Looking up along and through to the doomed roof of this hall of steel. Where dozens of pikes, lances, swords, muskets, breast plates and helmets are displayed upon the walls.