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.
14 comments:
Taking photos of "private vehicles" should never be grounds for suspicion. Two tonnes of metal driving on public highways are definitionally out in public. If the police wish their vehicles to be private when parked, they need to stop their photons escaping: devices to do that are called walls. Otherwise, if I can see their parked vehicles from a public place, there cannot be a privacy issue if I look at them ...or photograph them. Whether this auditor's other behaviours warranted police action or not, I can't say: doing it in darkness is an obvious red flag. But the 'private vehicles' excuse for a detention needs to stop.
Does the judge not consider that the police should be above being provoked
A very thoughtful and insightful comment above. Glad to hear you don’t think an individual dressed in camouflage at 3:30AM outside a police station (a Home Office building) taking images of vehicles through a secure gate is an ‘obvious red flag’. lol
> Taking photos of "private vehicles" should never be grounds for suspicion.
It clearly should be at 3am when dressed in camo and a balaclava.
I think the point is the photos are being taken of police officers personal vehicles, and the concern was (considering his attire, the time of day, his demeanour etc) that he could be attempting to gather information on police officers movements, with a thought to enactinf some sort of terror attack. Clearly there wasn't enough for a charge, but there definitely was for a s1 stop and search.
If you'd taken one iota of a moment to read the article you'd have seen that he was filming through a gap in the back gate of the Police station, not on a public road or car park, he was filming in the early hours of the morning dressed in full camo and a face covering, if this had been the back gate of your house you'd have phoned the Police In a heartbeat, or at the very least questioned the behaviour and given him an earful... On the road/public place, fill your boots, in a private carpark, get stuffed.
Your comment is predicated on the idea that it is merely the taking or owning of the photos and them being 'private' or 'not public that is the perceived wrongdoing. When in reality, it is the obvious safety concern and perceived intent as to what a person might do with those images such as using it as a way to remember and then later identify an officers vehicles out and about or publicising it as a police officers vehicle to directly or indirectly encourage or incite other people to take action against that officer.
On a road you are anonymous by volume of traffic. Someone taking a photo of a parked or moving car on the road or elsewhere would not know anything else about that person (unless also parked at a place of work). Police have the unfortunately very real worry that people they interact with during their duties could make efforts to find them and destroy their property, such as their car or home, or try to harm the officer themselves.
As to building walls, I absolutely agree. If you could convince the Govt and local councils to provide funding and planning permission that'd be fantastic because I haven't had much luck convincing them.
Obviously this story is about an auditor not a stalker or a vengeful gang member but don't pretend that making any reconnaissance or recon-like actions about police property or personal officer details isn't "excuse for detention" as you put it.
The silly twit was stood outside a Police station at 3:30 in the morning wearing camo gear and "a face covering". I think recording private vehicles was the least of the copper's concerns. However, it was an opportunity into a conversation that proved this bloke was behaving suspiciously and a liar.
I agree that for complete privacy, the walls of stations should be 10ft tall but that has a financial implication so how about, for now, we don't enable the behaviour of these idiotic "auditors"?
I've got a petition up on the Parliament website about these auditors. Please take a look and sign if you'd like this nonsense ended:
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/713717
I don't think I'll sign your petition.
As I feel exposing the rampant corruption within law enforcement in the UK is in the public interest 🙏
You obviously disagree
A petition’s a noble idea and I wish you well with it, however if new legislation is put in place these agitators will always try to find a way around it - freedom of the press (despite not being press), that sort of thing. We already have laws to deal with their conduct, those should be applied (and indeed have been). Introduce new laws and the malintended few will a) try to find a way around them and b) claim the introduction of new laws is either removing their rights or an indication that the law is trying to hide from them.
yeah like pigs are never blameless and Wayne Couzens was just unlucky.
And videoing private cars at a police station would have prevented that? Stop hiding behind murdered women to defend agitators chasing a buck on false pretences.
What has camo got to do with it, if he was standing on a pavement by the gate? Unless he was prowling through the bushes, his choice of camouflage clothing doesn't indicate an intention to hide does it?
Post a Comment