The shocking video of Ian Tomlinson being attacked last week has led to a general concern about the police's oppressive tactics and lack of respect for rights. People as far apart politically as Peter Hitchens and Vince Cable, both of whom have had direct experience of policing in London, have recently expressed fears that New Labour's laws are creating a gulf between police and public, and that our right to protest has been severely curtailed.

Last week I heard about another case of intimidation by police. It is unexceptional, which is what makes it so disturbing. It involves a young filmmaker, Gemma Atkinson, who was travelling on the underground with her boyfriend Fred Grace a few weeks ago. Atkinson told me that Grace was stopped at a train station, having been singled out before he passed through the barriers by a WPC. Atkinson says she was told to stand back while Grace was searched – he was told for drugs. She takes up the story:

After five minutes, I wandered through the station and filmed with my mobile phone the policemen and the sniffer dog and the men searching Fred while pretending to text.

An officer approached me and asked me whether I knew if it was an offense to photograph the police. I said I didn't know. I held my phone up so that he could see the home screen on it. He tried to take it from me. I pulled it back. He held my arm while trying to twist my body round to get the phone out of my right hand. I asked him to stop touching me and he continued. I managed to put my phone in my right-hand jacket pocket. He gripped me harder and was tying to pull me towards him so that he could have access to my right pocket. I asked him again to get off me and that he was hurting me. He stopped trying to get into my pocket but kept my left arm in a very firm two-hand grip. He turned to two women who were stood close by and explained that I had been filming with my phone, that it was illegal and that he's trying to get my phone, which is in my right jacket pocket. One of the women grabbed my right arm and the other went for my pocket. (It's possible that the plainclothed woman flashed a badge in my face first and said "we're officers" before they launched their attack on me). I swung around and pushed my self against the wall so that they had no access to my pocket and pulled myself down so that I was crouching on the floor in the corner of the walls. The three of them wrestled with me, pulling me and yanking me so that the other could get into my pocket. I pulled myself down on the ground trying to protect myself with my knees up at my chest but they just kept yanking me back up. "The male officer told me that it was the law that I should give him my phone. I told him it wasn't the law and they had no right to take my possessions and they were already in breach of my civil liberties. He said that he would arrest me if I didn't hand over my phone.



Atkinson says that one of her hands was handcuffed while the male officer held onto her left arm. She goes on:

I went limp when they weren't trying to get into my pocket but both the male and female officer continued with very firm grips in full knowledge that they were causing me harm. I told them on a number of occasions that they were hurting me but they said that I'd brought it onto myself.

I kept asking what I had done wrong to be treated like this and they said they were just doing their job. One officer said that he takes terrorism very seriously, that his friend died in 1983 from an IRA bomb. Later another one said they'd arrest me on "obstructing police work". I said, "I'm not, I was on my way home, my boyfriend got stopped and searched and I was waiting for him and now I'm cuffed and being threatened with arrest." There were five of them on me at that time so I told them that I was one woman doing nothing wrong, I was not obstructing them from doing police work, they had chosen to do this.



Atkinson told me that the situation continued for a few minutes, during which time one of the police officers told her that her boyfriend had been arrested for possession, which Atkinson says isn't true. She also said that the other officers behaved in a menacing way, shouting in her face and threatening arrest. Eventually Atkinson was let go and, she says, tried to get the name of the officers involved. She told me that only a uniformed woman police officer would give Atkinson her name. Some will say that this young woman, who is slight, was pushing her luck, but actually it sounds like she was standing up for her rights, which few people know and therefore do not defend. The Home Office has clarified new terrors laws concerning photography for liberty central and from what Atkinson has told me it seems clear that she was perfectly within her right to use a camera. "Taking photographs of police officers will not (except in very exceptional circumstances) be caught by this new offence.The new offence is intended to help protect those in the front line of our counter-terrorism operations from terrorist attack.

"For an offence to be committed there would have to be a reasonable suspicion that the photograph was intended to be used to provide practical assistance to terrorists." In any case Atkinson claims that she and her boyfriend were told that the police were searching for drugs. What is important is that the physical treatment she received appeared to be unjustified. The police had no right to demand her phone or any of her details. The law requires them to give their names, the police station they come from and tell people why they are being stopped. Atkinson said that none of this happened, and she has lodged a formal complaint.

The more general point is the failure of the police to respect the rights of innocent people, whether they happen to be caught up in a protest, legitimately demonstrating or legally using a camera. The disturbing treatment of a young woman in a tube station is no different from approaching a man from behind and pushing him aggressively to the ground. The behaviour comes from the same hostile attitude to the public that seems to be common among undertrained, young police officers.

I would certainly be interested in hearing of more cases along these lines. The battle to make the police understand and respect our rights is not one we can afford to lose.