FIRST SHEET (police complaint)

I was on the top floor, by the escalators outside Allders when I was approached by two officers and the security guard from Harrison Gibson who brought them to me. The officers told me that someone had made a complaint to a shopkeeper that I had secretly taken a woman's photograph without her permission. I replied that for the last couple of months I was being stalked, followed, put under close surveillance; and that I was gathering hard evidence to prove my case. I mentioned the term 'secret service' and an Asian gentleman now with them asked me, "You are with the secret service?" I replied, "No, I'm being followed by the secret service." On hearing this I could see that he reacted with a look of sudden understanding. He must have been the shopkeeper, and something must have seemed not right about the whole complaint. I would have liked to have spoken to him and sorted the matter out but the officers broke in and he was told to leave.

The younger officer asked if I had been taking pictures of young girls. I replied that I had only been taking pictures of people that were spying on me. He asked if any of them were young girls. I replied that they were people of all ages, but not really young girls; mostly men. I did offer the camera and rolls of film I had to be developed as evidence. He asked why they should be following me. I said that there was no good reason to follow me at all; maybe twisted thinking, a perception that I had extreme intelligence which could be dangerously subversive. He began to mention that they could be right if terrorism was involved. I said that I didn't believe in terrorism or violence of any kind, and said that in fact I was the one who had had a near fatal accident as I started out on the M4, 6 days earlier. My car had been tampered with (and I lost a tyre as I was approaching 70mph, spinning wildly out of control across three lanes. It could have been carnage).

I kept repeating that I had committed no offence and that I was going about my lawful business. It is not an offence to take a photograph without permission in a public place and this is all I had been accused of. I had been standing in the middle of the square, with no one near me and a tiny data camera in my hand down by my side - in no way a nuisance. The woman I photographed was part of a couple walking along the line of shops on one side of the road. They looked suspicious - watching me with exaggerated behaviour. Indeed, they began to cut across the middle, began to U-turn, and brushed past me to the other side in the opposite direction. I stood on the same spot and took the picture with the camera down in my hand without moving, no flash and only the faintest of sounds. This is not illegal and not being a nuisance. CCTV will back me up. The couple shouldn't have noticed.

The younger officer said that they wanted to search me, in a more private place if I wished. I agreed and cooperated fully throughout. The four of us walked across the upper floor towards the High Road escalators. As we came down the first escalator, the younger officer and myself first, the older officer and the security man behind, I quite clearly heard one say to the other "he should be beaten up in Pakistan", and they both laughed quite loudly. We were reaching the bottom of the first escalator. I turned behind me and said, "I would prefer it if you didn't make racist jokes within my earshot." The older officer said, "We weren't talking about you. We were talking about a different matter." We were now walking along to the second escalator. I repeated, "Please don't make racist jokes in my presence. I'll make an official complaint." We stopped walking. The officer turned, put his arms out, palms towards me, saying, "That's entirely up to you. That's your affair." We carried on walking to the second escalator, this officer now ahead of me. As we got onto the second escalator he turned up toward me, with the others further up behind me in his line of sight, and said, in a tongue-in-cheek kind of way, "No, we were talking about West Ham." Obviously a second joke where West Ham rhymes with Pakistan.

Outside, the security man left the scene. I went into a police van, which drove a short way, and then I was searched, and my ID verified. I was not given the names or numbers of the officers, or their police station, nor the reason for or aim of the search. Finally I was asked my plans for the rest of the afternoon, and told instead to go straight home. He was almost shouting. "Go home. If you're being followed you'll certainly be safer there." I said that I had committed no offence and would certainly carry on as before. "If we get called out again you'll be arrested, and be in the cells till Monday." I said that it wasn't an offence to take pictures without permission. "No, that isn't an offence, but we'll get you for being a public nuisance." I said that I would carry on.

My complaint is that my treatment was completely unacceptable. I was behaving within my rights and was threated with arrest and imprisonment for two days unless I changed that lawful behaviour. I was not given details of my accuser, allowed to see them or told any details of the shop etc. There were no witnesses to a crime, no accusation of a crime; I was searched to harass me. Why should someone taking pictures be searched? The security man and the police conspired and made racist jokes about me so the whole search, questioning and treatment were racially motivated. When marching an Asian to a police van to be searched, what other matter could "He should be beaten up in Pakistan" followed by a joint laugh, refer to? In the circumstances, I have a right to know. The police officer told me it referred to 'West Ham'. I have a right to know how. It is not an offence to take pictures in a public place without permission. Press photographers do it all day, in huge packs, with large equipment, running backwards, running into the street, continuously stalking the same individual, all without permission. Do these celebrities, politicians etc. complain to a local shopkeeper, disappear, with the police coming around to arrest? I, on the other hand, followed no one, stalked no one, stayed in the same place, kept my tiny camera down by my side, discretely releasing the shutter without moving, to photograph certain passers by that have been hanging around me. The CCTV cameras will prove that I absolutely have not been a nuisance in any way, while the paparazii do it day and night. The fact that the police said that I would be arrested and put in a cell for two days the next time they were called, even though my activity was lawful and I wasn't accused of doing anything unlawful, proves I could not possibly get justice. The racist jokes prove their motivation.