A tourist photographs Big Ben: Under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000, police can stop and search anyone within certain geographical areas without the usual requirement of reasonable suspicion
Taking photos of classic scenes such as London buses on Oxford Street at Christmas could lead to happy snappers being ‘treated like potential terrorists on reconnaissance missions’
Daily Mail | Dec 12, 2009
By Victoria Moore
On Tuesday morning, a sunny day in London, Grant Smith decided to make use of the good light and set out to take some photographs of Christ Church on the corner of Newgate and King Edward Street.
Australian-born Smith has lived in the capital for more than 25 years. He is an award-winning architectural and construction photographer, but this was a personal project.
‘I’ve been making a study of the Wren churches in the City,’ he explains. ‘The church was rebuilt by Sir Christopher Wren in the late 17th century after being destroyed in the Great Fire.
‘It was heavily damaged during the Blitz, so all that remains are two walls and a steeple – there’s a public garden where the rest of the church once stood – and it’s beautiful.’
But not everyone approved of this innocent activity.
Smith was standing on the corner with his cameras when he was approached by a security guard from the neighbouring Bank of America Merrill Lynch building. ‘He asked me for ID,’ says Smith.
‘I politely explained that I didn’t need to provide ID as I was standing in a public place. Then another, more senior, security guard came out.
‘Again, I said that I didn’t have to say who I was, and withdrew to the other side of the road.’
Smith was then approached by a Police Community Support Officer (PCSO) who demanded to know what he was doing.
Their conversation was cut short by the noisy arrival of blaring police sirens bearing down from the east and west.
As Smith watched in astonishment-three police cars, lights flashing frenetically, as well as a police riot van containing armed police officers, swerved into view and pulled up to investigate the ‘incident’ – which consisted of nothing more than a man taking pictures of a church in the capital in broad daylight.
Fortunately, as a professional photographer, Smith knew exactly what was going on, so he was more angry than distressed. This had, after all, happened to him before. Nor is he the only one.
Up and down the country, every day, people whose only ‘crime’ is to be carrying a camera and using it to take harmless snapshots of landmarks – or even, in one extraordinary case, a fish and chip shop – are being stopped, questioned by the police and asked to give their personal details.
Sometimes, they are told (wrongly) that they are not allowed to take photographs – despite being in a public place.
On occasion, the police have even (illegally) asked people to delete photographs from their camera. This is happening to tourists, day-trippers, sightseers and amateur photographers, as well as professionals.
The reason for this absurdity is a controversial piece of legislation known as Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000.
Section 44 gives police the right to stop and search anyone within certain geographical areas without the usual requirement of reasonable suspicion. It was brought in as a counter-terrorism measure.
But, increasingly, members of the general public are complaining that because of it they are being treated like potential terrorists on reconnaissance missions.
‘It’s an issue that has affected our readers a lot,’ says Chris Cheesman, news editor of Amateur Photographer magazine. ‘Some of the reports that come in are bizarre.
‘One man from Kent, for example, was visiting relatives in Hull and while he was there decided to have a wander in the city centre. He was taking pictures when he was stopped and told not to, on the grounds that some of the buildings were sensitive.’
Jeff Moore, chairman of the British Press Photographers Association (BPPA), concurs. ‘It’s a constant thing. It’s particularly prevalent in London and around Westminster.
‘I’m asked to speak at lots of events across the country and this subject comes up again and again. I hear about it from landscape photographers, members of the public, reams of people – anyone of any description who might have a camera.
‘There was one case of a professor of history who was stopped because he was taking a photograph of a park bench in South London, for goodness sake.’
The thinking behind Section 44 was that by giving each force the opportunity to designate entire areas of their region as ’stop-and-search-zones’ it would help police protect places considered to be vulnerable to terrorist attacks – for example, railway stations, power plants and government buildings.
The trouble is, because areas covered by Section 44 are often kept secret – for fear that it would help terrorists plan attacks – it is impossible to know whether you are in one or not.
Indeed, we are not even allowed to know how many such areas there are nationwide, nor how many square miles they cover.
Many feel there is also a problem with over-zealous policing, particularly by Community Support officers and junior police officers; others blame the imprecise legislation.
Two campaign groups, www.notacrime.com and ‘I’m a photographer not a terrorist’, set up to provide information for those uncertain of their rights, have each attracted support from several thousand people over the past few months.
There is certainly no shortage of ridiculous examples of innocent photographers being stopped and questioned in a way that many find intimidating.
Two weeks ago, BBC photographer Jeff Overs was standing outside the Tate Modern by the Thames in London, taking pictures of sunset over St Paul’s Cathedral, when he was approached by a policewoman and a community support officer who said they were ’stopping people who were taking photographs as a counter-terrorism measure’.
Overs was asked to give his name, address and date of birth and issued with an anti-terrorism stop-and-search form – this in a place full of people enjoying a classic view of the capital, many of them recording it on their camera or mobile phone.
‘I was outraged at such an infringement on my liberty,’ says Overs. ‘Foreign tourists must think Britain has become a police state.’
Indeed. In April, two Austrians were taken aback when they were stopped at Walthamstow bus station in East London where, like so many millions of other visitors to Britain before them, they had been taking pictures of London’s famous red buses.
They were asked to delete their pictures and, unaware that police have no authority to enforce this without a warrant, they complied.
If they had not, there is no guarantee that their perceived hostility would not have got them into a tighter corner.
Alex Turner, from Kent, discovered the cost of questioning police authority in the summer, after he was stopped by two men on Chatham High Street while taking a picture of a fish and shop called Mick’s Plaice.
According to Turner’s account the men refused properly to identify themselves. When he continued to question their authority, they summoned uniformed police.
He took pictures of the two officers as they approached him – and was then arrested, held handcuffed in a police van for more than 20 minutes, searched, and interviewed by two plain-clothes officers.
As Andrew White, from Brighton, points out, it all seems a terrible waste of resources at a time when public services are already stretched to the limits.
Mr White was taking photographs of the Christmas decorations in Burgess Hill, West Sussex, as he walked to work when he was stopped and asked for his details.
He says: ‘I don’t think taking too many photos in the street warrants being considered as some kind of terrorist threat. Surely the money spent on getting PCSOs to harass me in the street could be better spent elsewhere.’
The situation is all the more ridiculous when you consider that many of those who are stopped are taking pictures of streets or buildings that are already documented and available to anyone to search online, thanks to Google’s photographic ‘Streetview’ project. Google sent a fleet of vehicles to take pictures of every street in major cities.
Austin Mitchell, MP for Grimsby, tabled an Early Day Motion condemning police action against lawful photography in public places.
‘This is pure officiousness,’ he says. ‘Photography is a joy and a pleasure, not something to feel furtive and persecuted about. People have the right to take photographs and particularly of historic landmarks and buildings.
‘Here we have PCSOs and also junior constables inhibiting people from taking them. It’s nothing to do with terrorism, it’s just a desire to throw weight around.’
Mitchell also blames the law: ‘If you pass legislation like that, you get silly consequences.’
A Home Office spokesman insists: ‘We have no intention of Section 44 or Section 58A being used to criminalise ordinary people taking photos or legitimate journalistic activity.
‘We have issued guidance to all police forces, advising that these offences should not be used to capture an innocent member of the public, tourist or responsible journalist taking a photograph of a police officer. These offences are intended to help protect those in the frontline of our counter-terrorism operations from terrorist attack.’
But Shami Chakrabarti, the director of civil rights pressure group Liberty, believes the law needs to be reassessed.
‘Section 44 stops are not based on reasonable suspicion,’ she says. ‘And we know that less than one per cent result in arrest.
‘Hassling photographers and preventing them from carrying out perfectly ordinary assignments helps nobody, but blame must rest squarely with Parliament. It is time for this blunt and overly broad power to be tightened.’
Some fear that if the situation continues, a gradual process of attrition will mean that in a few years’ time people will feel too nervous about what they are and are not allowed to do, and that they will stop taking photographs of public buildings altogether.
‘There is a danger to journalism,’ says the British Press Photographers Association’s Jeff Moore, ‘because this is impeding the way we can report. And what about our pictorial history?
‘When we think of the past, we think of iconic images, like the one taken by Bert Hardy of two women sitting on railings on the seafront with their skirts blowing around their waist. But if things go on, we run the risk that the visual history of our country will not be recorded.
‘We won’t have anything like that in future. It will only be recorded by the state, through police pictures, or security firms, through CCTV cameras.’
Then Big Brother really will have triumphed.
