"Boycott Braehead" campaign over yet more anti-photographer stupidity

[techguyone]

LOL not exactly the best case to use as an example.

[Derek]

Originally Posted by danielf

So much so that the case was dropped?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/...st/8539682.stm

Dropped by the PF despite protests by the Police who issued a press release clearly stating there was more to the story than had been reported.

Cases get dropped all the time for various reasons. My point stands, this has all come from one man whose version of events has been accepted without any question or corroboration.

[Sirius]

Originally Posted by Chris

They really are a shower of morons and they richly deserve the publicity kicking they are getting right now.

Agreed, Wonder how long before they start the apologies and back tracking.

[techguyone]

It needs to be soon, everything further they have added thus far, is just digging the hole deeper.

This is the shopping centres facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Braehe...08688469185420

[danielf]

Originally Posted by Derek

Dropped by the PF despite protests by the Police who issued a press release clearly stating there was more to the story than had been reported.

Yes, and that's all we know, so it's not that obvious the guy was talking utter pants at all. All we have is a claim there was more to it, and the fact that the case was dropped does not give a lot of weight to that claim.

The fact that the fine was handed out by PC 'shiny buttons' Stuart Gray who earlier fined a man £50 for dropping a £10 note doesn't help credibility either.

Originally Posted by times

Matters became “a little bit surreal�, he said, when he wound down his window and was promptly charged by the stern-faced PC Stuart Gray, a man known locally as “Shiny Buttons� in recognition of his zealous attention to detail. “I honestly thought it was a joke,� said Mancini, 39, who was booked for failing to be in control of his vehicle.

“I said, ‘You’ve got to be kidding’. But he was absolutely deadpan. He’s a policeman, so you’re not going to start shouting abuse at him. I thought, ‘What is the world coming to?’ You pick the papers up every day and they are full of horror stories — but this bloke has nothing more to do with his time.�


PC Gray earned notoriety for doling out a £50 fine to Stewart Smith, another Ayr man, who dropped a £10 note from his back pocket. Mr Smith was charged with littering.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/dri...cle7007172.ece

Cases get dropped all the time for various reasons. My point stands, this has all come from one man whose version of events has been accepted without any question or corroboration.

True, but I'm not so sure if the police grapevine is necessarily a more trustworthy source.

---------- Post added at 18:40 ---------- Previous post was at 16:56 ----------

Interview with Mr. White on youtube. As has been said: he seems eminently reasonable.

Corroboration is important in the Scottish legal system, but it doesn't reverse the basic principle that someone is innocent until proven guilty.

No corroboration, no conviction. Simple as. Mr White is under no obligation to corroborate his story. As the one against whom insinuations have been made he is under no obligation to say anything. Those that suggested he may have done wrong are the ones that need to either put up or shut up.

I have no doubt that a different version of events is doing the rounds on the police grapevine, but let's face it, if the pair of officers attending have got their fingers burnt by bad publicity because they jumped in with their size 10s rather than simply declining to get involved in a pointless fracas between a shopper and a moronic security guard, they have probable cause for telling the story in a way that paints them as the model of restraint.

---------- Post added at 19:19 ---------- Previous post was at 19:07 ----------

STV news interview

http://news.stv.tv/scotland/west-cen...-his-daughter/

Shopping centers are not public places ,If the center in question has signs saying no photography then that is how it is ,they probably have signs saying no bikes or skateboards as well .Whatever the reasoning behind the camera ban (and it does seem a bit OTT to me) shoppers have to abide by it .How did the ice cream vendor know it was a father and daughter? ,how did the police ?they were just doing their job ,and we would vilify them if they didn't do it properly and a child was abducted or put on a peodo site because it was ignored .It could quite easily have turned out to be a case of abduction ,maybe if someone had paid a bit more attention then half the kids that are missing wouldn't be missing

It is a sad indictment of the world we live in that people are suspicious of a man and a little girl but it is the world we live in .And i have no doubt that the father was being a absolute twonk to the security staff

[Russ]

Originally Posted by martyh

How did the ice cream vendor know it was a father and daughter? ,how did the police ?

They could have asked....

Bollards, Marty.

There may be signs, but taking photos in defiance of them is worth a warning to desist at the absolute most.

If the concern was the taking of photos in defiance of a sign prohibiting them, then it is in absolutely no way, shape or form a police matter. For the police to attend the security guard must have suggested that a crime had been, or might be about to be, committed. For the police to continue questioning the man for 20-25 minutes as he says they did, they must have had some reasonable suspicion also.

Yet here we are three days later and there is no clarity whatsoever on exactly what Braehead thinks Chris White was up to, other than the disastrous press statement they issued this morning claiming that (despite their blanket photo ban) they don't mind *innocent* families taking pictures. Spot the disgraceful smear implicit in that remark.

Here's two of my children, photographed by me in Build-a-Bear Workshop at Braehead in 2010. Someone want to phone the polis?

[danielf]

There also is the issue that (according to the STV interview) they actually let him leave without checking it was his daughter. So if there were any child safety concerns, they failed miserably at addressing those.

[Derek]

Originally Posted by danielf

The fact that the fine was handed out by PC 'shiny buttons' Stuart Gray who earlier fined a man £50 for dropping a £10 note doesn't help credibility either.

Again utter guff. For one thing Police where he work can't hand out fixed penalties for littering. Again this was one story where someone went to the papers and their story was taken at face value.
The real story there was guy dropped a tenner and other papers, he was handed the money back and blatantly dropped the paperwork as the cop was walking away.

Originally Posted by Chris

I have no doubt that a different version of events is doing the rounds on the police grapevine, but let's face it, if the pair of officers attending have got their fingers burnt by bad publicity because they jumped in with their size 10s rather than simply declining to get involved in a pointless fracas between a shopper and a moronic security guard

They haven't got burned as their identities aren't widely known. Yet. If someone is causing a minor disturbance in a busy shopping centre and the Police are contacted by the security guards they can't very well ignore the request.
If they then intervene, tell the person exactly why they are there and he ignores them they might have to be a bit more forceful in their manner.

He wasn't arrested or detained, he was given words of advice. The cops at Braehead aren't rookies straight out of college, they know what they are doing and I believe them when I'm told their version of events.

The other thing that makes me think this guy is being a bit light on the truth is some of the stuff he mentions is based on English law and not Scots law, he might have just done some Internet based research before writing his letter but I'm still dubious.

Anyway what'll probably happen is the original complainer will get a few more media interviews, will get a big basket of goodies from Braehead and the Police will tell him they're sorry he felt the Police intimidated him and the officers have been spoken to.

[

Originally Posted by Russ

They could have asked....

They probably did Russ not that asking achieves anything people do lie you know especially the kind of people these rules are meant to deal with .At the end of the day as far as the police and the centers' staff where concerened he could have been anybody acting in a percieved suspicious way with a young child ,what else are they supposed to do ,ignore it and wait for "child abducted from shopping center" story then turn round and say "well we saw them having ice cream ,he was acting a bit suspicious but we just ignored it".We ask people like security guards and police to do these jobs and then go nuts at them when they do it .

Yet, at no stage was the man asked, by security or by the police, if the girl was his daughter. This I imagine is because the girl was calling him 'daddy' and turning to him for reassurance whilst various uniformed goons made her life a misery.

Whatever this was about, it wasn't child protection - not her protection in any case.

Derek, what should he have done in this case?
I'm asking because it would be nice to have actual clarity about what the actual offence was..so we all know what to avoid in a similar situation.

[Derek]

Originally Posted by Chris

For the police to continue questioning the man for 20-25 minutes as he says they did, they must have had some reasonable suspicion also.

20-25 minutes??? I hadn't heard that one before. Again his credibility isn't going up much. 5-10 is far, far realistic.

Originally Posted by Chris

Here's two of my children, photographed by me in Build-a-Bear Workshop at Braehead in 2010. Someone want to phone the polis?

Nope. If there are other photos of the female staff inside that could be another matter...