Avon and Somerset Police have staged a publicity stunt designed “to encourage members of the public to call 999 as soon as they [see] a crime taking place”, as the BBC website puts it.
Regular reporting is tough enough to get right – but when you’re covering a crime story involving the sex trafficking of underage girls, it’s a legal and ethical minefield. And that’s before you think about how to handle your relationship with the police. But when the Oxford Mail newsdesk found out about Operation Bullfinch, the police investigation into an Oxford child prostitution ring, reporters rose to the challenge.
Today I discovered that the front wheel of my bike had been stolen. It must have been an easy crime to carry out; the bike was parked at Oxford train station with just the frame locked to the stand. It probably only took the thief a few minutes to get the wheel off.
I was tempted not to bother reporting it to the police because I know very well that I won’t get the wheel back, but I decided I didn’t want this crime, however small, to be invisible.
The Times website was criticised for its coverage of Saturday’s “Mili-band”, the climate change protest where hundreds of people formed a ring around Kingsnorth Power Station in Kent. Robin Henry’s piece was illustrated with a stock photo of helmetted police in a riot situation. (This has now been removed, after reader complaints, and replaced with a stock photo of a power station which may or may not be Kingsnorth.)
I can’t write about heavy-handed police tactics without mentioning recent events in Kent. The Kingsnorth Climate Camp is a perfect example of why the right to photograph in public places is important: because otherwise actions like those shown here would go unrecorded and unreported.
Photographer: "I know the law!"
PCSO: "Yeah, good for you!"
This video [1] raises many of the contradictions in the state attitude towards filming: CCTV is OK but human photographers are a problem; cameraphone footage is helpful evidence but filming in a public place is suspicious behaviour.