Oh dear, how sad, never mind.
Kevin Brown, 35, of Blackburn, goes by the name of Auditing Lancashire on YouTube.
Feeling really sorry for himself, Brown recently uploaded full details of his court failure to his YouTube channel. The upload, which has now been deleted, included full footage of the incident as well as various stills of court documents.
Fortunately another YouTube channel, Street Video Reviewer, managed to grab a copy of Brown's video before he deleted it. Street Video Reviewer has given a commentary on Brown's case.
There is nothing I will be mentioning here that has not been publicly shared by Brown himself.
If anyone has not come across the crass phenomenon of auditing before, then aren't you the lucky one?! Please see my earlier whistle stop guide to auditing for background information.
In the simplest of terms, it involves "an auditor" filming in such a manner as to provoke a reaction, which they hope will result in a popular - therefore lucrative - upload on social media later on.
The auditor will often claim they are exercising their rights to film in a public place, but that is very much a secondary consideration to generating controversial, click generating content.
I reiterate one of my previous comments, which is of relevance in this particular case. Some auditors have realised that if they provoke a reaction from police officers, they might well be in a position to make a civil claim later on. They are actively staging and pursuing these vexatious claims as an alternative revenue stream. They are deliberately setting up police officers in the hope of making a few extra quid.
Brown, shown in the custody mugshot above (which you can read more about here), was filming at the rear of Greenbank Police Station, Blackburn, at 0330 hrs on Thursday, 29th September 2022.
Sergeant Kerr, who was in the yard of the police station, noticed Brown filming through the gate.
It being pitch black and the dead of night, Sergeant Kerr considered Brown's activity unusual enough to approach the gate and ask what he was doing.
It should also be noted that Brown was dressed in camouflage clothing and was wearing a face covering. The terrorism threat level at the time was "substantial", which indicated an attack was likely.
"Are you taking pictures of people's private vehicles?" asked Sergeant Kerr from the other side of the gate.
"Pardon" replied Brown.
"Are you taking pictures of people's private vehicles?" Sergeant Kerr repeated.
"I don't understand" replied Brown, trying to feign a foreign accent.
"I'm sure you do" replied Sergeant Kerr.
"I don't speaking English" replied Brown, in his native Lancastrian twang.
"You're speaking it" noted Sergeant Kerr.
"Why are you filming me? It's not a good idea to film people's private vehicles" Sergeant Kerr continued.
Brown stood silently with his camera trained on Sergeant Kerr, who then took the 30 second stroll around to the public side of the gate.
On arriving at Brown, Sergeant Kerr asked: "What's your name?"
"Why?" replied Brown.
"Because you're acting suspiciously" replied Sergeant Kerr.
I'm not going to transcribe the whole video, because I think I've illustrated the point already - Brown's behaviour was certainly very unusual and Sergeant Kerr was right to be suspicious about it. Not many legitimate photographers and videographers head out in the dead of night. Those that do, generally don't pretend to be foreign when they clearly aren't.
It's at that stage that Sergeant Kerr took hold of Brown, who no doubt saw the pound signs flickering before his eyes.
After a few minutes of Brown accusing Sergeant Kerr of abusing his powers, a second police officer approached. Brown then acknowledged for the first time that he was filming the police station. The second officer, Chief Inspector Black, told Sergeant Kerr to let Brown go, which he did.
Brown sued Lancashire Constabulary for false imprisonment and trespass to his person.
HHJ Jacqueline Beech, presiding over the trial at Preston County Court, described Brown's behaviour outside the police station as "utterly unacceptable" and said that in her view it was designed to provoke Sergeant Kerr. The Judge noted that Sergeant Kerr's use of force was necessary and reasonable.
Brown has been ordered to pay costs of £30,575 to Lancashire Constabulary. HNK Solicitors, the firm of choice for litigious auditors, are also asking for costs of £1,175 for taking the matter to trial.
It is unlikely Brown will have sufficient assets to pay those costs, but at least they will be hanging over his head for a while.
It would be nice if this was the beginning of the police defending these most meritless of actions commenced by auditors. For far too long the default setting of the police has been to roll over and settle.