Filming Police - a notice from Merseyside Police

[woodman]

Back in Jan, I was filming a man on a rooftop protest,

Huyton man threatened with eviction stages roof protest

I'd only had my camera out for seconds, when a female PC shouted at me, "Hey You! Where's your ID?". I replied, "I beg your pardon, are you addressing me?". "Yes!, you need a press pass to film here, now turn it off or I will arrest you and sieze your camera!".

To cut a long story short, what followed was three Police Officers all of this opinion shouting at me various rubbish and me refusing to turn my camera off, whilst informing them that they were all quite wrong and that I was behaving perfectly within the law. Eventually, I requested that they confirmed to me exactly what law they were referring to, they went away to check on their radio and never came back to me, leaving me to film.

I wasn't at all happy with the way I was treated, and later that evening I emailed the local Inspector, who replied promptly and made me an appointment to see the Inspector in charge of these Police Officers. At this appointment, I met with this Inspector, he was very nice and immediately apologised and said the Officer was completely wrong. I asked if the officer concerned would apologise to me and he said he would ask her.

This officer came in minutes later, but even though she said the word "sorry", it was clear to me that she wasn't sorry and thought she'd done nothing wrong, so I refused to accept her apology. I then asked the inspector, that if he supplied me with a letter stating that I was perfectly entitled to film incidents and Police in case I came across this officer again (or similar officers who think that they can film, the press can film, but I can't), that I would not take the complaint any further. Here's what he sent me.

Letter from Merseyside Police re: Filming Police

[Freeman Stephen]

This should go viral. The met website is so far the only authoritive thing the police will accept - they arent up on the statutes or anything that authoritive to them.