I met a policeman one morning.

On my way to work at about half seven in the morning, earlier this week, the road was very congested as I got near work. It became obvious that a road traffic collision had occurred, and fairly recently. Everything seemed in hand, the police were there, no bodies or anything horrid. I continued to work, just around the corner, parked the bike, and decided to go and have a look, and perhaps take a few pictures in case I could get anything from the local papers.

So, by the time I walked around the corner, after parking the bike, the recovery waggon had arrived, and everything was blocked off while the car was sorted out. Cars were waiting, and there was a few pedestrians looking on. I got my camera out, a small digital camera, and took a couple of frames. I was standing on the opposite side of the road, behind railings, and not in anyone's way. At this point, the solitary police officer at the scene, a road traffic patrol officer of some standing (he had special looking 'tactical' style trousers) saw me and, leaving the quiet, unhurried conversation he had been having with some of the construction workers who were hanging about, approached. I straightaway knew I was dealing with somebody of no mean talent when he said, as he approached, observing my camera still pointed at the damaged car behind him "I hope you're not taking pictures of this." I took a picture of him. What else could I do?

He told me to stop taking pictures, as this was a crime scene and people had been injured. I responded by telling him that this was a public place, and there was no reason why I couldn't take pictures. His forehead furrowed and he repeated that this was a crime scene and that if I continued he would confiscate my camera. I asked under what law he might do this, and, forehead furrowing further, he again said that this was now a crime scene, and not open to public view. I helpfully pointed out that quite a few members of the public, standing or sitting around the crossroads, were indeed viewing the scene right now, as was I. Undaunted, and now fully furrowed, he decided to repeat, a la Vogon, that I was not allowed to take photographs, adding with a barely concealed gleam of cunning triumph, that the car crash was evidence.

I asked what law he was using to stop me. He paused for a second. He looked at me like I had just scored the winning goal, but was offside, and the ref had allowed it anyway. I was bringing the law into this discussion, which his expression suggested he seemed to think was unfair, and indeed irrelevant. He persisted, telling me again that I couldn't take pictures. Again, I asked what law said I couldn't. This was clearly too much for him to cope with, for he gave a short, but emphatic grunt and walked off!

I was relieved not to have been arrested for the crime of asking a police officer a question that he didn't know the answer to. I only wish I had been quick enough to switch the camera to video mode. He would have been on Youtube by now for sure.

The local rag published a story about the crash the next morning, which I can quote in full here.

Classic.

I am pleased to see that Sdeve has the courage of his convictions and is standing up for our rights. It is perhaps encouraging that our new coalition government is in favour of rolling back the assaults on our liberties perpetrated by the Labour government. They may have a few more urgent matters to attend to first such as avoiding national bankruptcy.

Archie

Potential "crime scene", I mean you need to be convicted before a crime has been committed?

Your cunning track of using the law to back up your actions. Canny that.

Tactical trousers! Tactical pants (in the US of course).

With respect, a crime is committed the moment it happens. The perpetrator, however, is innocent until proven guilty.

It was a bit of a stretch for the rozzer to claim that a traffic accident was a crime scene, but perhaps he was anticipating further Nulab changes to the law, and was unaware that we had a new government. It has, after all, been a very low-key election. A busy policeman might easily have missed it altogether.

I ams starting to think that we should all carry around a slip of paper describing photographers' rights, just for showing to officious officials.

G

It's a thought George, although it shouldn't be necessary. I have yet to have any sort of run in with "authority" in a photographic context and only ever did once in any context. An over-zealous traffic policeman around midnight in the middle of nowhere....

We had a robust conversation during which he became quite irritated and quite irritating. He was desperate to find something wrong, but sadly could not. After a while we went our separate ways. He didn't even bother to ask for license or insurance - he just knew I'd produce them....

I would have also probably have tried to take a few shots if I thought I could earn a few quid. The only difference is that I would have complied with the officer's request, as it wasn't unreasonable given the circumstances (accident scene, potential traffic offence, police officers trying to carry out their duties).

The police are not above the law (so I'm told). Their ignorance of the law is no more an excuse than ours. Worse is their abuse of our ignorance of the law.

Just because you are police does not mean you shouldn't be questioned or challenged. It might irritate you but it should be part of the training to deal with members of the public.

So to tell the public not to do something with no reasonable grounds on a whim, on the basis recounted here, which sounds like sheer jobsworthery, is getting on for abuse of power.

If the police get used to stopping people filming them then there will be a problem in bringing them to account. (Blair Peach vs Ian Tomlinson).

The traffic cop did not know the law. He was used to getting his own way in spite of not having the backing of the law. I'd like to think he went back to the station and mugged up on the law.

An approach I find interesting. I would like to read a bit more on why you think his request was reasonable.

OK, it's an accident scene. in the public domain. There would have almost certainly been a traffic offence. People see, and often photograph traffic offences on an almost daily basis. No problem there. Police trying to carry out their duties. I wasn't stopping him, or even slowing him down.

Let's take it to an extreme but quite possible conclusion. The car belonged to his drunken mate, also a police officer, and he didn't want the details recording as he was going to fudge the record. Or it belonged to the Chief Constable, who had ordered him to keep it quiet. Or perhaps a member of the recently formed cabinet, who wouldn't have liked the publicity.

The words I didn't say, but now wish I had, come to mind. "If you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to fear."

The ironic thing is that these words are the argument people use to support the invasion of privacy from everything that intrudes upon our freedom - ID cards for example.

You are using them to protect your freedom to photograph, but equally well the police could have used them to take your details and investigate you. After all, if you were innocent you had nothing to fear....

Having been in a road accident last year, if a member of the public was taking pictures, I would have been extremely grateful to any officer asking them to stop. A demonstration is a completely different scenario, of course taking pictures is in the public interest there.

At the time you took the pictures, how can you be sure that the police knew that no one was injured or that no offence had taken place? At my accident scene, they took their time ascertaining whether any one had been hurt, and did a lot of work examining the road surface to check for signs of dangerous driving.

I take Pentaxophile's comments here as reasonable and I would never take a photo that included an injured person .

However I think I might have asked the one traffic cop [ Sdeve only mentions one being there ] if I could help by taking photos of the relevant vehicules and their positions until the official police photographer arrived. This could possibly have speeded up getting the road clear .

Certainly trained accident investigators can gain a lot of information about an accident from Photos taken at the time .

Your gratitude would not have changed the fact that I was acting entirely lawfully. It might have been different if I was leaning over the paramedic's shoulder to get a close up of your compound fracture, but there was nothing like that in the case I describe. I was some way from the car, the width of four wide urban lanes of traffic in fact.

How did I know that the police knew no one was injured? There was no ambulance or medical staff there. There was no blood on display. Nobody looked that bothered about the crash. And, of course, although I didn't know it at the time, the fact is, nobody was injured! The officer at the scene was a traffic officer. He would have known whether anyone had been injured, this would be the first thing he would have enquired about. The officer was doing nothing more than chatting to the road workers there. He was not examining anything. My photographing the scene would not have in any way impaired his ability to examine the scene, unless, of course, he was trying to protect a mate by obscuring or failing to mention such indications on an accident report.

Let me discuss the issue of injury a little more. Suppose in your accident, you had damaged your spine. You are stuck in your car, and the police officer, who never really understood his first aid course, pulled you from the car, paralysing you for life as he did so. There are no other witnesses. When you are suing the police for negligence, the officer, panicking, has said that the car was smoking and he thought there was an immediate risk of fire. Or perhaps he said that you crawled out yourself, perhaps in spite of his repeated requests not to. I obey the nice officer, and there's no pictures, I refuse, and you can at least live a better quality of life.

Even in a non injury collision, pictures of the scene may help resolve an enquiry.

But, none of the reasons I have given matter a jot. The fact is, the officer was acting outside the law, unjustifiably, made threats he could not lawfully carry out, lied to me to back up his non existent authority, and his failure to carry through his threats was, in my eyes, confirmation that he knew he was talking rot, and that makes the only reason he said what he did was that he was getting off on his imagined authority.

I'm afraid that I would take a free society, untroubled by public 'servants' who see themselves as public masters any time, even at the expense of your dignity at your accident. I would take that view even if it was I in the accident. I may not like the attention, but I like the police state less.

You never mentioned that he threatened you, in fact you said he walked away when you mentioned the law! As for the police injuring your spine, they're probably so worried about the sort of litigation you mentioned that they would rather leave you to burn to death rather than move you without a paramedic present. Well done!

What you see as a police state I see as the police attempting to maintain some sort of order at the scene of an incident. They probably have to deal with a lot of ghastly rubber neckers who like to use someone's misfortune for a bit of Youtube fame.

I'm playing devil's advocate a bit here, i'm well aware of the worrying aspects of police activities at demos etc

But perhaps discouraging (at least for left-of-centre people) that we rely on a Conservative government to protect our liberties from a Labour one. Something seems the wrong way round about that.