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.
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This is a really scary story. Dave and I had a similar (but not quite as extreme) incident when we were taking notes on an underground station in London for a writing project we were working on. Security asked us to leave the station but thankfully the police didn't get involved. It was terrorism they were worried about in our case. It's getting harder to be a practising artist of any kind in a public space, I think.
ReplyDeleteSorry to hear about your experience (of a similar nature to this article). Yes it does seem that after 9/11 and other related issues it is becoming hard to express yourself creatively and artistically whilst in the public domain.
ReplyDeleteOne of the other contributing factors for this as well I believe is the explosion in "digital photography" with regards virtually everyone having access to a camera or camera phone.
I also belive that there is currently this public hysteria that everyone is either a "Terrorist or a Paedophile". Yes the whole World as gone mad.