Ayesha Kazmi: Can you tell me what powers the police exercised in order to stop you at the protest?
Pennie Quinton: I was stopped and searched when covering the arms fair protests at the Excel centre 2003. The area came under a section 44 jurisdiction but there was also a section 60 in place. The police can put a S60 in place if they suspect that there is going to be violence. That week during the protests I was stopped under a variety of acts, I was really being harassed. I was stopped under PACE, I was stopped under S 60, and I was stopped under section 44.
AK: Can you describe what happened that day?
PQ: The Excel has its bi-annual arms fair the biggest arms fare in Europe, which is why there were protests against it. The irony is some of the delegates attending were on the governments’ ‘terrorist wanted list’ but they'd been given an amnesty to come and buy weapons as they were going to be spending huge amounts of money. During the protests, the police acknowledged there were people they actually wanted inside the Excel centre, but were not allowed to touch them. Overseas terrorist organisations were present, ‘but we don't want to get in the way of the market.’ I think there were some quite ironic pieces written at the time about this. Liberty were concerned that S44 was being used to police protests, rather than for what the act was intended for. They had actually put some of their lawyers at the demonstration because of this.
AK: Why were you there that day and what happened to you?
PQ: I had my camera, and the police had cordoned off a section near the excel centre, I had a feeling that something was going to happen. I've got quite a good instinct and I walked, quite a long way around the police cordon and onto the dual carriageway that runs alongside the Excel and as I walked up the embankment I saw all these young people running as fast as they could they could towards the Excel centre they were being pursued by quite a big burly policeman and some plain clothes officers. They were then pulled to the ground and were sat on by the police officers so that's what I wanted to get footage of, right? As I walked up the embankment with my camera, trying to film this; a WPC walked up to me and she just said; “what's your name?” I gave her my press card that’s the first thing I did, as I wanted to carry on filming. She then said, come with me. I said; “well I'm filming.” I wanted my card, so she made me wait and stand by other detained people sitting on the ground. I was kept waiting fifteen minutes. She asked me to stop filming so I was unable to film the arrests. I put the lens cap on but carried on recording sound after fifteen minutes she took my camera and turned it off. During this wait she said “I’m going to search you under section 44 of the terrorism act.” Which is on the recording. The police logged the search as lasting 5 minutes, but my footage alone is 15 minutes, so this disproves that. In the case; one of the violations of my privacy was the WPC taking my camera and turning it off which in my specific case, didn't really do very well at the county court because the question was framed to the jury such as “do you believe that it was a violation of Pennie Quinton’s privacy that her camera was taken and turned off?” And the jury voted almost unanimously no. Then in Kevin Gillan’s case: “do you believe it was a violation of Kevin Gillan’s privacy that the police confiscated his notes and his research?” And again the jury voted no so we completely lost in the domestic courts. When we got to Strasbourg the McPherson report had just come out and they(the judges expressed concern about the high number of stop and searches of black and Asian youth under S44). So our case was actually there demonstrating the misuse of this law. My case definitely showed that the law was being misused; the police officer did not have to suspect that I was a terrorist but using the power I could be prevented from filming, prevented from as it were covering the police actions on that day an example of how the law was being misused. It wasn't being used because they thought I was a terrorist, it was being used because they thought I was a journalist. In the same way, I don't think that the police think a fourteen-year-old kid who’s on his way home from school who may be a bit leery is a terrorist. They think: “I can use this to stop him and he might have something that’s incriminating.”
AK: Can you tell me more about Kevin and your case?
PQ: It wasn't really about Kevin and I. The case was particularly about the fact that the law was shaky; being able to be stopped and searched for no reason. It wasn't because what had happened to us was particularly extreme. The point was to demonstrate that this law doesn't have enough guidelines and can be used in ways the police choose but not for the reason the power was intended, and that was what the challenge was about. S44 gives the police too much freedom and too much opportunity to abuse this power. It cannot be challenged if the police stop and search someone under section 44; it’s very difficult to challenge a police officer. The WPC that stopped and searched me, in court, said she couldn’t remember [the stop and search]. She basically gave a no comment interview, she couldn't remember the incident and that doesn't matter, it doesn't matter that she couldn't remember, because the law gave her the power to stop and search for no reason, because there was no reason it didn't matter, she could just stop and search me. There doesn't have to be a reason, it’s completely arbitrary. Initially the whole thing went to the House of Lords where Lord Bingham ruled the use of the power against us wasn't a violation of privacy and that if we had any actual issue with the way that the stop and search was carried out we should seek remedy in the lower courts. We had to exhaust domestic remedy before we could take the case to Strasbourg, after we losing at the House of Lords.
AK: Didn’t the police officer have to fill out a form as procedure?
PQ: The worrying thing is that the government wants to take away that process. So it’s going to be more difficult to monitor how many stops and searches take place. The conservatives want to take away the receipts people receive when they are stopped and searched, and that is really worrying. It’s as if the incident didn’t happen, as the person won’t be able to prove they had been searched.
AK: What do you think the purpose of Section 44 of the Terrorism Act is?
PQ: When section 44 was started it was trialled in protest situations. So the first people to complain of S44 being used against them, and were protesters back in 2003 during the protests about the Iraq war. I don't know how much it was used before 2003, but we first became aware of it as protesters around 2003. I was covering protests, and it was mainly people who were covering protests that were being stopped, people that were filming, people that were photographing.
AK: What makes Section 44 different from other stop and search powers? And how is it different from Section 43 of the Terrorism Act?
PQ: The difference with this stop and search power is that the police don’t have to have any suspicion that's the main thing. The problem with this is that they are able to just search for no reason. That's what was exceptional about this power. It meant that they didn't have to suspect that someone of carrying a weapon; they even didn't have to suspect someone of being a terrorist, they didn't have to suspect anything. They could just stop anyone under this legislation once the order was in place. Section 43 is with suspicion and is a different stop and search power to S44. Section 44 applied to vehicles and pedestrians. Section 43 is a suspicion clause, section 44 still remains in place for the stopping and searching of vehicles. For Section 43 a police officer must have suspicion that this person is a terrorist, or might connected to an act of terrorism and that's the difference to S 44, where there doesn’t need to be any suspicion. Other search powers are broader than S 44. There is a range of powers. Maybe S60’s are used near nightclubs, or PACE, (the Police and Criminal Evidence Act), if police suspect something. In the case of repeated searches of black and Asian youth most people in the black community don't want to make a case, I have heard some people say if they made a complaint every time they were stopped and searched, they’d never leave the police station.The targeting of certain communities is very high and I think that mothers are very afraid for their sons; you know what can happen because things can escalate very quickly. I remember there was a protest outside Lambeth town hall relating to Derek Bennett; a man shot by police in Brixton. He was shot six times in the back, the police suspected he had a gun he had no gun. The only thing he had on him was a cigarette lighter. There was a protest outside Lambeth town hall led by the youth and I went along to get some photographs. I’d not covered a protest led by the Afro-Caribbean community before. It was about 50 or so Kids about 14 years old and some older women. The men from the community didn't seem to really want to take part. I remember we went past them and they just looked at us and went oh, yeah it’s just some kids. We marched down Brixton Road and we marched up to the place where Derek Bennett was killed off of the Brixton Road, and his sister gave a speech. Then the police said, everyone this way, but the kids said, “no we’re not doing what you want.” And they marched in the opposite direction to another street. Suddenly there were six or seven riot vans, tactical support group vans, and the police were immediately ready with their shields pushing everyone around, kids and women. I just thought it was going to be a little community protest so I’d actually got my shopping – I’d just been Christmas shopping. The police were pushing us with their shields; they were throwing people to the ground. It was really a complete overreaction, so I think that's the problem it really does come back to that as an institution the police force are racist.
AK: In what ways do you feel that stop and search powers can be abused?
PQ: The difference is that the photographer can put down their camera. A photographer is more likely to be known by the police if they cover demonstrations and there may perhaps be a relationship with the police as well, not necessarily a friendly one, but the police will know them.They might have photographed the police doing something wrong and that might have led to bad publicity for the police. So the police have a direct interest in stopping a photographer from doing their work because the police don't want to be made to look bad. There is that dynamic, that paranoia has spread to private security firms, because the police have circulated guidelines. If a photographer is taking photographs of buildings police have advised security guards to stop them, but they don’t have the power to stop anybody taking a photographs of something in the public domain such as a building. A lot of police interference preventing photographers from taking pictures using the terrorism act is actually bad policing. There is a prejudice there, but it’s not the same as if you happen to be Bengali, Pakistani, moving through London, where your chances of being stopped are very high. There are specific times when photographers are targeted maybe when they are covering demonstrations or at a high profile event, but a black or Asian youth are stopped more at any time. S44 is disproportionately and routinely used against a huge section of the population. And the police have negative association with blacks and Asians searches will increase when there is an incident; like 7/7. And at that point, politicians are under huge pressure to do something now and this can lead to scapegoating, ‘we've got to do something now’, syndrome, everyone starts buck-passing. Even if the intelligence services did know something was going to happen, obviously they messed up because something happened they were unable to prevent. There have been no arrests related to a section 44 stop that led to charges. So some people were been arrested in a situation that started with a section 44 stop, but all were released without charges. It has not been an effective power at all while impacting on our freedom of assembly, freedom of movement, and right to privacy.
AK: Why do you feel that stop and search powers are necessary?
PQ: In every country where you have a suspect population, forces whether they're the army or a police force, suspect boys from about the age of 13 till about 24,because this age group are more unfixed in society, they're not really positioned anywhere. They're in that kind of limbo between childhood and adulthood I live above a kind of car park. A bunch of lads use to hang out in they don't really have anything to do. But they’re very noisy and they're very aggressive with each other and its loud and I think people feel threatened by that. But actually, that's just what happens with men at that age. They very often hang out in a group and it’s considered suspicious. They're often bored or something, I don't know, you can go anywhere in the world and a see a gang of boys of that age with nothing to do, sitting around. It’s just what it is. It’s just what happens you can’t just stop and search them because they're young, and you've got the added suspicion in the police eyes, “Oh they're a bit brown, or foreign, or Irish.” It would be interesting to see if the Irish community are still being quite targeted.
AK: Do you believe that stop and search is used disproportionately toward minority populations?
PQ: I think so. I remember the Daily Mail’s outrage that the police thought, they were going to get done for racism so, according to the Daily Mail, began searching ‘innocent’ white people. The Daily Mail is really the essence of such attitudes. I’d like it if someone took a case against the Daily Mail under the Race Relations Act.
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