So had the Duty Sergeant arrive last night to discuss my complaint.
First of all - my complaint. Written in a wine induced "and another thing!" attitude - not the best I admit but it's not rude either. Please excuse grammar / spelling mistakes - trying to get this posted and do a pile of work at the same time.
"Dear Sir or Madam:
I would like to make a complaint regarding an encounter with Tayside Police on Tuesday 4th November 2008. The incident occurred at small woodland named XXXXXXX on the XXXXXXX.
We (myself and friend) had arrived at these woodlands at approximately 1630hrs on Monday 3rd November 2008. We set about making our camp and settling in for the night. At about 0800hrs (4/11/2008) I awoke after hearing a male voice talking – rousing myself I saw it was a police officer who had come in search of my friend after his car (which he had only had from the dealer for 1 week) had been reported as abandoned. After ascertaining my friends identity and clearing up any problems with the car the police officer then started to ask me questions in order to confirm my identity. I personally felt very offended at being questioned without any due reason.
The Officer then asked “Not at work today lads?”, now whilst I am sure this seems a very small complaint to make I really do not need to explain Annual Leave entitlement from my employers to the police – especially as no charge or investigation was being explored - I felt this to be heavy handed and invasive.
The second officer that was there then said “and we have been asked by the land owner to move you on as well”. Now at this point I did inform the policeman that we were wild camping as expressly allowed in the “Land Reform Act (Scotland)” – the officer then told me I was incorrect and that the act only applied to public land. This is wholly inaccurate. When I then started to protest and point out that the Act in England and the rest of the UK does not permit wild camping, the Scotland amendments do! I also pointed out that we were following the Outdoor Access Scotland code. Unfortunately both officers were adamant in their interpretation of the relevant act and asked us to still move on. Which we then did.
As a long time user of the outdoors (and wild camper) I was very disappointed at how we were handled. I found the encounter to be unduly invasive and frustrating at the lack of knowledge demonstrated by the officers, unfortunately in this situation the lack of knowledge is not met with a lack of authority and the public are left feeling frustrated and at odds with a service that was created to protect the rights of the public above all else.
Whilst I appreciate that sometimes people make mistakes in their everyday jobs I would like to add that if an officer is unsure then sensibly he should have gained clarification before telling me I am wrong and adopting a heavy handed approach. Surely one piece of legislation that a Police Force covering rural and semi-rural Angus should be very clued up on is the Land Reform Act – hence governing the Public's access to the land all around this area.
I would also like to point out that when the Officers turned up they said that it was due to a report of an abandoned car (my friends car), however after that had been cleared up it was stated that “the land owner has asked us to move you on”, - I would dearly like to know when this request was given because it certainly was not when the above described discussion was going on. In fact I got the distinct impression that the “decision” to move us on was that of the second policeman irrespective of our rights as laid down in the laws and statutes of this country.
Yours Faithfully"
Long drawn out conversation about the amount of crime going on in rural areas at the moment and this was the reason given for me being asked ID questions and a check being ran - I explained that I appreciated this and if this had been explained at the time then it would have been less of an issue.
With regards to the access to land issue she was actually very defensive and stated that the reason we may have been moved along is that the land owner may have requested it! - big gobsmacked but stated my point about being within the law and that would mean the Police siding with a Landowner against the laws of the country when they should be staying unbiased. This went on for quite a bit - asking if we had camped there previously, had we contacted the land owner to let him know, etc etc.
I explained that we had not contacted the landowner, and we had camped there previously. I also explained that we do not camp just anywhere and if its clearly a spot of land that is in regular use then we avoid it. If the landowner has stuck up fencing all around and locked gates and made the place look like a sign that shouts "Leave me alone" then we would do just that. And that you would be hard pressed to even know that we had been there when we leave.
She also mentioned that another of the reasons for being moved on could be that the officers were being "proactive" in light of recent diesel thefts, hare coarsing etc etc, at this point I had become quite fed up of being nice and resorted to pointing out that I was completely unwilling to have my rights curbed because some members of the public do carry out these crimes. I also pointed out that the law states my rights and it is not the decision of the police officers involved to decide to overrule a law!
At this point I was asked what I would like to be done about the events,
I asked that in future if it is not clear and that there is time that an explanation be given before ID details and checks are done. (turns out this should happen anyway). She did also mention that it is not always practical to do this due to the circumstances, I did laugh at this and replied with "Well at 0800hrs and both of us still in our bivis, I cant see us making a quick escape!"
And I asked if the officers could be made aware of the legislation and brought up to speed with applying it.
All in all it was a very unexpected but very useful debate and I certainly have become more aware of the problems facing the Police in rural areas but at the same time still stand by my original complaint. It is good to know that action will be taken to sort out these problems but nothing gets back that satisfying feeling of that morning when you wake up from your bivi bag, see this, smile and wonder if you should get up to make a brew to plan the day ahead.
ps - i should point out that whilst this looks tranquil - stoo was asleep in his "nest" and the noises emanating from there would probably have been enough to be convicted of a public order offence at the time, he blxxdy well soon woke up when he thought his car was in trouble tho
Cheers
Tom
Ver neatly done.
