"Incident" created after taking a photograph

What is this incident T10 to Hainault all about? i'm intrigued.

Possibly I'm getting my terminology confused here but The Working Reference Manual has been referred to here; is that what was withdrawn to be replaced by the rulebooks and, if so, what are the official LU lines on photography now?

Was 'pulled' again by Met Pol yesterday when photographing South Harrow station (or rather what you can see of it under all the ridiculous "elf n'safety" scaffold-pole roof railings), PNC check, DoB, etc. Third time in six months. I'm just glad I've only got about ten station exteriors to go in my photo survey. They tried to assuage me by saying that I wasn't going to be arrested; well that didn't work because I didn't think they had any grounds too anyway. There was some debate as to what demographic a potential terrorist was likely to come from in 2008 but I shut that discussion down pretty quick. I had a sense they were trying to provoke me into expressing some un-PC views, which could then warrant further action, and I wasn't going to fall for that one, nor for their talk about IRA terrorism in the past. As I pointed out there is no current mainland Republican campaign aimed at UK rail infrastructure. Oh and to finish I there was an implicit threat that if I carried on taking photos of railway stations I "could expect a lot more of this in the future".

Reading the APA guidelines linked by Inspectorsands I can only presume then that my camera was deemed an item capable of allowing me to a) "commit a crime" or b) "commit an act of terrorism"; since I don't believe South Harrow is an area "where a terrorist threat has been identified".

Of course post-7/7 maybe the whole of LU, the whole of London, the whole of the UK, or the whole of the Western World is perhaps so designated?

I was not given the officers' names or their police station but then was not actually searched, although I voluntarily showed the contents of my camera's memory card to them.

What galls is that I was stopped, basically, because of a threat which has been apparent since 9/11, even though I do not in any way fit the demographic of a likely terrorist. This is not intelligence-led policing in my view.

Furthermore if Irish Republicanism is going to be brought into the argument, then were Special Branch raiding, say, the Regent's Park mosque whilst hunting for IRA members in the 1970s? Of course not, they were infiltrating pubs in Kilburn instead, but equally there'd be little pointing hunting for al-qaeda inside Biddy Mulligan's bar in 2008. I fear it's more a case of 'ticking boxes' and ensuring the right %/quota of people are stopped during a shift.

And when I finally got onto South Harrow platform, there in front of me were a family busily snapping away (with flash) using a tiny digicam.

Is there any evidence either the 7/7 or 21/7 bombers' plots were in any way assisted by photo reconnaissance anyway?

PS - rant over, for now....

Sorry, I *did* get the form. And the time and sheer waste of time this took up was the most annoying thing about the whole experience. ("How would you describe your ethnicity" etc) (Jedi Knight?)

Terrorism is about changing people's behaviour and perception even if the actual level of damage is small and this is how they win. I'm on leave this week and planned a few days' out with camera. After yesterday, I currently feel too un-nerved and intimidated to venture out with the camera. So the terrorists *are* winning aren't they?

Of course "part 10 of rule Sa109 in the Working Reference Manual" no longer exists on LU

Obviously I was not there to know how it was delivered, but I would not consider that a threat but simply a piece of advice. We all know that taking photos of and around stations means there is a big risk of being stopped as that is what the Commissioner of the Met has instructed officers to do.

As annoying as it is, everyone time I have been stopped by the police they have usually been friendly and never confrontational. I get the impression they would also rather not be wasting their time with all this nonsense too.



But even then, what did TfL regard as a "small camera" anyway? They could easily have said that rule does not cover people using an SLR.

Well just to show that all us police types don't stop everyone taking photos I was at Harrow on the Hill last week and took a picture of the exterior, two BTP officers coming down the stairs walked straight past me, I even managed to get them in the shot. What would be interesting to know would be if people are stopped more by the Met than BTP, I would suggest it was the former.

Edited to remove reference to inappropriate remark

The only time I've been approached by a police officer, rather than station staff, was by an off-duty BTP officer at Tower Gateway a couple of years back.