UK's no-go photo areas
Why is Derbyshire the best place to live if you're a photographer? Olivier Laurent reveals all
© Mikhail Bralowski
All but one of Britain's police forces has made use of controversial new powers that allow them to stop and search any member of the public without the usual requirement of reasonable suspicion - powers that BJP has reported have been used to stop photographers shooting in public places on countless occasions.
With the exception of Derbyshire, BJP can reveal that all British police forces have been granted use of Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 to stop and search individuals, including photographers. However, our survey of responses from chief constables shows that most are unwilling to reveal where specifically they are being used, claiming that releasing such information would play into terrorists' hands and could be used to plan attacks.
The answers came after BJP filed 46 Freedom of Information Act (FoI) requests to all the chief constables in Britain, asking if they had requested authorisation to use S44 in their own regions.
According to the Home Office, powers under S44 enable uniformed police officers to stop and search anyone within an authorised area for the purposes of searching for articles of a kind which could be used in connection with terrorism. The powers do not require a reasonable suspicion that such articles will be found.
The powers last 28 days, forcing chief constables to ask for a new authorisation every month. They must also state in each case where exactly the powers will be applied.
The results
In total, 29 of the 46 chief constables declined BJP's requests for information, while five partially answered our questions claiming they had used the powers but were not in a position to communicate further details. Three chief constables - in Cleveland, Dyfed-Powys and Kent - did not return their responses, which BJP understands is in breach of FoI protocol.
Only nine forces released the information requested, including Derbyshire, which appears to be the only force where police officers have never used S44 for stop and search. In fact, the only time Derbyshire's chief constable asked for the powers was in July 2007 'for the whole of the county of Derbyshire', following the failed car bomb attacks on London and Glasgow, after which the whole of Britain was given clearance to use S44 powers.
Among the counties that refused to disclose the information, the Cambridgeshire force went as far as to argue that BJP could be itself a terrorist organisation. It justified its stance saying: 'By careful placing of information requests, planners of future attacks could use intelligence gained to divert attention away from the intended target, or indeed towards a particular area to gain maximum effect.' It added: 'If a terrorist is able to control when and where a S44 authority is engaged and the information published; members of the public may be "herded" into another area by this: this may be the site of the intended attack or secondary device.'
Similarly, counties including Cumbria, Essex, Hertfordshire, Merseyside, and Surrey all declined to answer, claiming that although there is a public interest in the transparency of policing operations, release of any details regarding the use of S44 could threaten the health and safety of the public and the police force itself.
Surrey's chief constable wrote: 'The police service will never disclose information that would directly assist actual or potential offenders to commit criminal acts, thus materially damaging the legitimate needs of law enforcement and placing the public at extra risk. As recent court cases clearly evidence, terrorists engage in detailed planning as part of their activities. As part of this planning they, for example, trawl websites for useful data. Disclosure of when and where Section 44 authorisations were in place in a particular force, in this case Surrey, would clearly enable a national "map" to be drawn up indicating those geographical areas where an individual would be more or less likely to be stopped by police using these powers. This is particularly the case in areas other than London where it is already publicly acknowledged that such authority currently applies across the capital and where geographical analysis is therefore less relevant.'
Lancashire concurred: 'The disclosure of a list of where such searches are likely to take place would alert individuals who are engaged in terrorist activities of the areas they are more likely to be detected. Therefore, this would result in such individuals moving into those areas where they are less likely to be detected.'
Open answers
However, this point of view was not shared by counties such as Hampshire, where the powers were requested on 103 occasions prior to April 2009, according to the area's chief constable, who found no objection in releasing the information. If the 103 demands were consecutive, that would mean Hampshire Constabulary has been requesting the special powers since the Terrorism Act 2000 was enacted on 19 February 2001. In fact, in 2006/2007 the constabulary reported 7094 S44 searches, and 3481 the following year.
The justifications used by constabularies to decline BJP's FoI requests were often in direct contradiction with their own actions. Over the past three years, most constabularies have reported the number of stop and searches made using S44 to the Home Office. These figures are published annually by the Home Office and available to anyone online. A survey of these figures shows that apart from Derbyshire and Staffordshire (the latter didn't communicate its numbers to the Home Office), all forces had used the powers at one time or another.
These figures also bring forward discrepancies in some of the answers received. For example, Warwickshire Police claimed that it only asked for S44 powers in July 2007 'covering the entire force area immediately following the attacks in London and Glasgow'. However, in the financial year ending April 2007, the same constabulary reported to the Home Office 19 searches using S44.
Sussex Police claimed it could not answer BJP's request for information because of national security concerns. However, in a previous FoI request (Reference FOI 700/08), the same constabulary published a list of the number of stop and searches undertaken using S44 powers. In total, over the past six years, Sussex Police has stopped and searched 3581 persons and 895 cars.
24/7 cover
Only two police forces did not have to answer BJP's requests as the use of the exceptional powers has clearly been previously advertised. Both the Metropolitan Police and the City of London Police confirmed to BJP that S44 authorisations had been requested every 28 days for the past eight years. In fact, just last year more than 100,000 people were stopped and searched in the capital.
Rupert Grey of media law firm Swan Turton tells BJP: 'If there is a high-security alert, I can understand why police forces wouldn't want that information released, but there is no indication in many cases that those responsible for the decision have genuinely tried to balance the importance of transparency against the need for security.' He adds: 'If photographers and reporters are to do their job they need to know whether S44 powers are in place. Just as the police are guardians of our freedoms, so are photographers. It does not do any harm to remind them of this from time to time.'
BJP's report comes less than a month after the Home Office issued a new circular dubbed 'Photography and Counter-Terrorism Legislation' that makes it clear that anti-terror laws should not be used to stop people taking photographs on an ad hoc basis (BJP, 26 August).
BJP's FoI initiative is part of our ongoing 'Not A Crime' campaign, which aims to raise awareness about the increasing restrictions imposed on professional photographers in the UK and overseas. BJP will continue to fight for photographers' rights, and we have already filed another 46 FoI demands, requesting whether the Home Office circular has been, as instructed by the Home Minister, distributed to all police forces in the UK.
You can help our campaign by uploading a protest photograph to www.not-a-crime.com.
How the police forces responded to our requests - county by county
http://www.not-a-crime.com/foi
