An associate of the illustrious Amateur Brain Surgery Club was in attendance, snapping pics on his fancy new digital SLR. He soon found himself confronted by several police officers who warned him that if he continued to take pictures his equipment would be confiscated and he was liable to be arrested under section 44 of the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2000.

Not wanting to lose his new camera, or be arrested, he ceased snapping. But the truth of the matter is that people don’t need permission, in the UK, to take photographs in public places and the police have no power to stop people from filming or photographing them or events as long as they are occurring in a public area.

This post: Photography is actually still legal in the UK makes the point very clearly.

More detail on photographers rights in the UK can be found here: UK Photographers rights.

So we encourage every camera carrying reader to snap pictures of any and every incident involving the police because they cannot legally arrest you for doing so. The UK law makes it clear that photography is not a crime – but preventing people from doing so by threatening them with arrest and confiscation of their equipment surely is.

For example Douglas Hogg, the former agriculture secretary, submitted a claim that included over £2000 to have the moat around his country estate cleared and James Arbuthnot MP claimed for the cleaning of the swimming pool at his country residence.

Michael Ancram, the Marquis of Lothian, claimed more than £14,000 a year in expenses while owning three properties worth an estimated £8million, none of which had a mortgage. It has emerged that many members of parliament have been making claims for their country homes for many years, going back to the time when receipts were no longer required to be submitted.

The actor Stephen Fry has hit back at the media for having made such a meal of this latest scandal. In his opinion journalists are some of the worst offenders when it comes to fraudulent expenses claims. He says that it is a ‘jounrnalistic made-up frenzy’.

However, there are many people in the UK who would disagree. The amounts claimed by these MPs may appear to some people, like Stephen Fry, to be trivial but for those earning relatively low salaries, like nurses (a grade A nurse earns between £10,050 and £12,615 a year), these questionable expenses claims are plainly wrong and far more significant than the war in Afghanistan, the current financial crisis or global warming.

The IPCC now have this case to investigate as well. They certainly have their work cut out for them. But what on earth were the police at the G20 protests thinking? It’s looking like they were primed for a fight and instead of controlling people they resorted to bully-boy tactics that should never have been used.

While it’s good to hear that the officers concerned have been suspended it will be months before the IPCC complete their investigations. By then will we have all forgotten how serious these offences were?

Ref: BBC News.

The Nurse is gobsmacked by US policemen’s gung ho shootings.

The telly in the UK was shite over Christmas. The Nurse found herself hunkered down in front of ‘World’s Worst Police Shootouts’ one freezing night for the want of anything better to watch.  

Expecting light entertainment, The Nuse was shocked rigid by the gratuitous legalised murderfest that ensued. And she ain’t easily shocked. 

Five or six cases were shown, each of which ended in the ‘perp’ being shot, usually to death.

In one video a middle aged lady ran out of her house on a suburban street, obviously in some kind of distress, waving a short kitchen knife. The two attending cops, both in a right flap, fannied around for a few minutes then, when she ran towards one of them, panicked and shot her.

All the other cases featured followed much the same pattern. 

The Nurse has always had the greatest respect for the UK’s police. If she got a bit pissed (or pissed off) and ran out of her house in her nightie waving a little knife, she could do so in the certain knowledge that she wouldn’t be shot for it.

Instead her local police would talk to her and get her to drop the knife. Or, at worst, rugby  tackle her to the ground. Either way, they’d calm things down. Then they’d make sure she got some help. 

The Nurse wonders where you’d rather live. In a country whose police are legally authorised to shoot rather than protect you? Or in one where the police manage to keep control with truncheons, silly hats and empathy?

She knows which she’d choose, despite the shite Christmas telly.

Every other house appears to be used as a so-called drugs factory, operated by Asians and staffed by one poor care-taker gardener, forced to sleep in the kitchen and tend the house full of cannabis plants. The gangs running these drugs factories are also alleged to be responsible for smuggling people across the channel, squeezed into containers or crammed aboard fishing boats coming into Newhaven after dark. Some of these poor people will find themselves exploited mercilessly, forced to work in sweatshops in return for a corner to sleep in, or worse.

Prostitution is just one way in which many of these unfortunate people are exploited. Rather than using houses as brothels many of these criminal gangs have started using top of the range commercial vans, often acquired on van leasing contracts to save on initial outlay. They will then take these shiny new vans along to car parks where they find plenty of customers. They can quickly evade capture by the police and move on to another pub car park or industrial estate where there is never any shortage of men, happy to pay for sex with these poor captives.

Society is steadily in decline. Crime is really on the increase and, as usual, it is the weak and vulnerable who find themselves subjugated and exploited.

Mrs Saldinack’s sons, Luke Newman and Oliver Clark, along with a third man, Benjamin Hammond, set upon Mr Parkinson and a friend in a completely unprovoked attack. All too common these days. They kicked and punched Mr Parkinson causing serious injury including blinding him in his right eye.

After hearing her two sons bragging about the attack Mrs Saldinack responsibly called the police. Her family and her son’s girlfriends have now broken off all communications with her and are alleged to have threatened her for what she did. Yet she was in the right and the two idiot sons were clearly in the wrong. What sort of family are these people?

Mrs Saldinack is undoubtedly a very brave and courageous lady, unlike her thuggish offspring who are now serving two years each for these offences.

But will two years behind bars for these mindless, violent criminals give Mr Parkinson his sight back? Of course not. Two years in prison for this violent act that has resulted in a law abiding citizen losing his sight, his business and his health is nowhere near enough. And if it wasn’t for Mrs Saldinack’s bravery they would still be walking the streets, bragging about their exploits and potentially committing further acts of gross violence.

If you know of someone who has bragged of having committed a violent crime we encourage you to call the police. Not doing so could result in someone else getting hurt, or worse.

Why are we so paranoid about terrorists and terrorism these days?

Back in the 70s and 80s the IRA actually was bombing the life out of London, Birmingham, Guildford and anywhere else they could manage. On a regular basis.  

There was good reason to be wary. The Nurse, like everyone else, viewed railway station litter bins with justifiable suspicion. But as far as she remembers we weren’t afraid or terrorised. We just sighed, girded our collective loins and got on with it.  

Politicians keep insisting there are terrorist plots being hatched willy nilly, all over the place. Really? The Nurse can think of several ‘big’ plots since the London bombings that turned out to be nothing but hot air. Loads of innocent Muslims dragged off for interrogation, later let go without a single charge, under a cloud of police embarrassment.  

9/11 was a tragedy. But it was a long time ago. The London bombings were a long time ago too. Admit it. We’re hardly being blown up at every turn. She doesn’t know about you, but The Nurse refuses to let the government make her feel scared all the time. Stuff that. She’s more likely to trust Bin Laden than most UK politicians!

Our roving, festival going reporter told us that the figure was probably higher than this, and it doesn’t actually reflect the value of the money and other items that were stolen. We’ve heard of one individual who had £800 nicked from their tent and another who had £350, a camera and a nice pair of Nike trainers pinched.

Crime at festivals is nothing new, just look at all the drug dealing! But thieving on this scale is a worrying development. Festival goers are, after all, a soft touch. The big chill attracts people with a few bob in their pockets, taking time out from their high powered jobs to indulge themselves in some hedonistic revelry for a few days. To record the event they take along their fancy cameras and they’ll have their new mobile phones, some nice posing clobber and a big wad of cash to pay the drug dealers for the weekend’s medication. It’s therefore not surprising that some organised criminals are targeting these gatherings.

What is more worrying are the reports that we have received regarding the role that certain security staff played in the burglaries that were carried out this year. We have received uncorroborated reports that some security staff were, in fact, briefing the criminal gangs regarding which fields of tents they should target. We were not particularly surprised by this as we have several contacts who work in the security industry who are all steroid-noshing bad boys who will do almost anything for a few bob. That’s not to say that everyone working in security is open to corruption or engaged in illegal activity. Like any profession there are bound to be a few people who don’t play by the rules, and when the compensation for a little information is sufficiently high anybody would be tempted.

But what can the average festival goer do to protect themselves? Out top tips are:

1. Don’t take anything with you that you would hate to lose because even if you don’t get it nicked you’ll probably leave it somewhere when you are spannered;
2. Challenge anybody who doesn’t have the required wristband or ID. Don’t worry about making a noise or a fuss, shout at them if necessary;
3. Make sure you know what the security guards are actually wearing and what their IDs look like;
4. Make use of any on-site security facilities for those expensive items you just couldn’t leave at home;
5. Take as little cash with you as possible and make use of on-site cash dispensing facilities;
6. Stash your cash down your drawers. You’d have to be seriously out of it not to notice someone groping around your genitals looking for your wonga;
7. Find out what security measures are in place before you go along and make sure you are happy with them. If you are not then say so.
8. Stay at home.

If you’d like to read some varied reports regarding this years Big Chill I can recommend this thread: Festival Forum: The Big Chill.