The Metropolitan Police commissioner made the comments at a Metropolitan Police Authority Committee meeting in City Hall on 22 July, after being intensively questioned by Liberal Democrat London Assembly member Dee Doocey.

During the meeting, which is video-recorded and can be viewed online, Doocey asked the commissioner if he was "confident that your officers are aware of the law when it comes to members of the public taking photographs in public places?"

Stephenson answered: "It is a stated fact and public record that we did go through a period when there was a spate of these types of incidents. And I admit, I could not be confident at that time, because they were happening, and it was a matter, occasionally of morning despair of what we were doing on occasions around it."

He added: "The problem is, of course, getting 33,000+ police officers and 4000+ PCSOs to exercise the judgement that you have at 9am in the morning. At the result of that, we did issue very precise guidelines to officers, did an awful lot there. John Yates said at the time to everyone – and we did a huge amount to get out this message because it was costing such a disproportionate loss of reputation for us – that there is no restriction on people taking photos in public places or any other building other than in very exceptional circumstances."

Stephenson also said that, on previous occasions, he "did make the comment here and various other places that people come to London actually to photograph it. It’s crazy [for tourists not to be able] to do that."

The commissioner added that he had been made aware of the most recent incident, involving the 16-year-old Jules Mattsson, who was stopped and detained by two police officers after taking pictures of a cadet parade in Romford. "We do keep re-issuing those instructions. We do try to get the level of discretion used correctly. Sometimes this level of discretion isn't always right and I know in that incident, while we have not received any official complaint this time, the officers have received words of advice."

However, Stephenson's answer didn't satisfy Doocey, who hit back, saying that the audio recording of the incident showed that the officers were clearly acting out of their rights. She said: "I don't know if you have listened to the recording but it's actually eight minutes of two of your officers intimidating somebody, and at one stage they say that they don't need a law to stop them photographing, but much more worrying, they don't need a law to take them away. It’s not a question in my view of… It’s so serious that it don’t’ think it should be somebody giving them words of advice and I don't also agree with you that it is a question of officers using their discretion."

She continued: "This was very black and white: Two of your officers who, despite the fact that I know you have given them guidelines because I have a copy of it, who totally disregarded them and were either so completely ignorant of the law, or decided to ignore the law – they were just going to say they knew the law better than the person they were talking to – they were very seriously intimidating. I find it quite worrying that I don't think you are taking this quite as seriously as I think you should be.”

Stephenson went on the defensive arguing that he had never suggested that the officers involved in the Romford incident had demonstrated the right judgement. "I am not in any way suggesting they used their discretion appropriately on this occasion."

Doocey also asked the commissioner to review the issue thoroughly, as, she said, "I see this as part of an ongoing problem," adding: "I don't know how you communicate with officers – I don’t know how John Yates communicates with his officers – but, clearly, whatever communication there was hasn't actually got through to quite a lot of people and I think you need to just review it."

While the commissioner argued that the message had gone through, he admitted that he was ready to look at other cases to see what went wrong.

UPDATE: In a statement released to BJP, Dee Doocey says that she "wasn't entirely satisfied" with the commissioner's reply. "The Met have a long standing problem in enforcing guidance to all police officers on a range of issues."
 
She adds that she "will certainly continue to raise this issue until absolutely confident that real changes have been made."

View the video recording of the Metropolitan Police Authority Committee meeting here (debate starts at 67min56sec).

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