Man prosecuted for posting airsoft photos on facebook

[Gepard]

That's terrible, @BALDYMONSTER! I hope you get reimbursed for your time, health and personal items. It really is a scary thought that this could happen to any one of us law abiding players.

Although perhaps this is one example organisations like UKAPU can use to help prevent this happening in the future? It may be worth reaching out and telling your story and see if we can get some sort of change going. 

 

[Mr Monkey Nuts]

So go on, whats the rest of the story, what are you not telling us? What happened before all of this? Context is very important.

The police would absolutely not have followed this course of action without precedent or reason. They certainly wouldn't threaten to call you affront a court without all of their eggs in a basket. There is a reason this action was started and it wasn't just for putting pictures of facebook.

My speculation is that this has stemmed from a facebook/social media argument, that has become heated and aggressive, Threats and intimidation were made, probably by both parties. Someone involved has seen your images and feels genuinely threatened and took it further.

Any previous?

That scenario would seem to support the polices actions to be reasonable. Your internet persona certainly would fit the bill.

Ball park figure, anywhere near the truth?

If YES: Suckit up princess.

If No: f*ck the police!

 

[Rogerborg]

It wasn’t from a group, it was my own personal account.

Ah. In one way that makes it very slightly less scary for the rest of us than if they'd scraped an airsoft group and blatantly ignored the obvious context.

However,...

That incidentally had all the privacy settings as right as possible, but the cops admitted that they had asked for  an “open source” request on my account.

Yeah, shenanigans there.  So they didn't just happen to stumble across it, the copper in question actually sought it out.  Because why?

Their initial story was that it had been a public tip off, but they recanted that later, right?  I guess we'll never know the truth.

I should mention that there does still appear to be a video clip of someone holding a RIF publicly accessible on a Facebook account with your name.

 

[Rogerborg]

The police would absolutely not have followed this course of action without precedent or reason.

You'd be surprised how much momentum the policeman's ball picks up once it's given a nudge and starts rolling.

Northumbria Police used an aircraft to take aerial pictures of the "crime" scene where a person was accused of eating an apple with intent.  The casus belli was that a copper thought she was using a mobile phone, went into red mist mode, and refused to wind his neck in when it turned out that he'd been wrong.  The Farce and CPS chose to back him to the hilt, apparently having wrapped up every other crime in the region:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-335291/Pipped-Woman-driver-fined-eating-apple.html

So while I'm minded to agree that there's likely some back story that we'll never know, the stubborn prosecution was entirely in character.

 

[Mr Monkey Nuts]

Did you read the article? She was found guilty. She was not accused of "eating an apple with intent" she was accused and convicted of being "not in proper control of a motor vehicle" an offence under the Road Traffic Act.

That whole article is an anti police smear by her lawyers, when she was categorically in the wrong.

Genuine question: would you think that someone eating an apple is a reasonable excuse for them to avoid prosecution, if they killed your family by being out of control of their car?

 

[BALDYMONSTER]

So go on, whats the rest of the story, what are you not telling us? What happened before all of this? Context is very important.

The police would absolutely not have followed this course of action without precedent or reason. They certainly wouldn't threaten to call you affront a court without all of their eggs in a basket. There is a reason this action was started and it wasn't just for putting pictures of facebook.

My speculation is that this has stemmed from a facebook/social media argument, that has become heated and aggressive, Threats and intimidation were made, probably by both parties. Someone involved has seen your images and feels genuinely threatened and took it further.

Any previous?

That scenario would seem to support the polices actions to be reasonable. Your internet persona certainly would fit the bill.

Ball park figure, anywhere near the truth?

If YES: Suckit up princess.

If No: f*ck the police!

There had to be one didn’t there?

It would appear you seem to know me or have been told the usual nonsense to suit someone’s agenda.

The bottom line is that no arguments where had concerning or involving either of these pics. The comments below the pics clearly demonstrated that these were airsoft items. A simple look through my page would have demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt that this was airsoft, to say the very least.  Nobody was involved in any heated exchanges or arguments in or around these two pics, in fact, quite the very opposite. There was no member of the public that had reported these images to the police despite this being what the police initially claimed. It was a member of the police themselves (seemingly high up) that took it entirely upon his self to task others to do what they did. And it was proven in court that these other officers had not been informed or shown the comments below the pics. And they admitted themselves that had they seen or been made aware of the comments below each of the two pics they would have looked at things entirely differently, as in, would have realised the two pics were no different to the thousands of others posted daily on all sorts of social media.

As for the cops getting all their eggs in one basket before going to court.....there was an awful lot more that came out about how this entire thing came about and was handled than just a break in the chain of evidence my friend.

Additionally, it’s very poignant that several PF’s, uniform cops and other lawyers stated quite clearly that this should not go ahead and it was a complete waste of time and public money.

Now, you’re asking if I have any precon? Perhaps I do, and maybe, just perhaps countless others that play airsoft and post similar pics all over various forms of social media daily do as well....what a shocker!!!

Do I have any previous offences with firearms? Nope, not a thing. In fact I was a long term section 1 and section 2 licence holder until I voluntarily handed them in for personal reasons.

Try and bend it however you like but if those sort of resources, time, training and money can be spent dedicating an entire operation of that scale on me because of two airsoft related pics...

Then bloody hell the cops should be arresting people 24/7 for similar pics or even looking down the lense in a “threatening manner”.

Not to mention all the threats and intimidating claims the average Jeremy Kyle guest posts up daily as they publicise their chavvy drama filled lives all over the net.

 

[Rogerborg]

Did you read the article?

The 12 year old article that I'm so familiar with that I recalled it from memory?  No, what did it say?

She was found guilty.

Can you quote where I said she was innocent?  You'll notice the reference to "other" crimes.

She was not accused of "eating an apple with intent" she was accused and convicted of being "not in proper control of a motor vehicle" an offence under the Road Traffic Act.

Funnily enough, eating a banana gets you a conviction for driving without due care and attention.

That whole article is an anti police smear by her lawyers, when she was categorically in the wrong.

Can you quote where I said she was in the right?

You may be missing the point somewhat.  It's about how the police and prosecution services can get the red mist on and use a sledge-hammer to crush a monkey nut, or an apple.

Genuine question: would you think that someone eating an apple is a reasonable excuse for them to avoid prosecution, if they killed your family by being out of control of their car?

It'd give me more time to share my genius on the internets.  Bonum commune communitatis.

 

[BALDYMONSTER]

Come on guys, let’s not allow this to descend into petty bickering.

 

[BALDYMONSTER]

That's... actually pretty bad.  Can you please fix your title: he was prosecuted and put on trial, at a time when the Fiscal is bawwing about having no resources for prosecuting real crimes.  We're not talking about some wee ned either, the chap is 45.

The really concerning part is that the Sheriff apparently was going to convict based on the bare images that ScotPlod had scraped from Facebook, until it came out that they'd removed the context that what they showed was a bunch of toys posted in a group where people post, and expect to see, images of a bunch of toys.  That's truly disturbing - many of the pictures on here would seem to be fair game.

I'm seeing if I can track their victim down on Facebook to see if there's more to the story, although I imagine he's going to be quite shy of the platform now.

Sheer speculation, but I have to wonder if the copper was more than professionally involved.  I can't fathom any other reason for joining a Facebook group full of people posing with toys, and then choosing one particular chap to pass to the Fiscal for prosecution for "menacing images".  I mean, why him?  Why those pictures?  There's got to be something more to this.

Wait, was it this bloke and this video?

Im more than a little concerned about my account seemingly being now live again.

Seeing as I completely deactivated my account the day after the cops detained, interviewed, searched my house, confiscated 30 odd items and then charged me with a “Breach of the peace”

And it’s now been brought to my attention that my fb account is now fully “live” again!

 

[BALDYMONSTER]

Direct link: 


It contains some interesting comments by the defence lawyers revealing the " terrible error on the part of the police" in stripping the context from the pictures without disclosing this to the defence.

Tellingly: "Mentioning no names, a number of PF deputes I spoke to thought the prosecution ridiculous; however, I understand their views were over-ruled on high."

This is truly the most deeply concerning issue at the heart of the entire matter.

Several other PF’s, uniform, lawyers and other judges stayed quite clearly, off the record unfortunately but understandably that the entire thing was a complete and utter farce and should never have happened let alone been brought to court.

But the top Brass made sure that nobody was to even consider dropping it, it was to go all the way regardless of anything, even common sense, ahem.

 

[BALDYMONSTER]

Wait, who was charged with a breach of the peace?  How many people are we talking about?

And I'm interested in the matters of public record, i.e. which local paper reported the armed response and helicopter arrest (I see that was confirmed by the chap's defence, good god), and where this was shared on social media.  There seems to be a peculiar paucity of information before the report of the acquittal.

I may be searching for information that's just not there, but it's just bizarre that one set of pictures out of thousands drew the wrath of ScotPlod and the Fiscal, and I'd very much like to avoid being their next victim.

The initial charge was breach of the peace as I had allegedly caused “fear and distress to a member of the public”.

When it became abundantly clear at trial that the police had lied and there was no member of the public complainant, they then desperately tried to change it to “of menacing character”.

When the prosecuting PF and the poor cops that were called to the stand were then shown the comments below the two pics it was nothing short of a complete cringe fest.

The Young PF who had absolutely refused to drop this, (through no actual fault or decision of his own) was visibly very panicked, shaken and distressed as to what he had been “dragged into” so to speak.

When we broke for lunch my lawyer had close words with the poor PF suggesting that he had better get the top guys down to explain all of this. As it was plain for anyone without an agenda or some sort of chip on their shoulder (like a particular naive member on here) that there were several more  laws being/had been openly and willingly broken to ensure this was taken through the court system and personally I believe to cause as much stress, anxiety, upset as possible to myself and my girlfriend.

Now, I’ve always been well aware that money and influence means power. And I have my own personal ideas who and what is behind this.....

And no, I’m not directly blaming the Police.

 

[BALDYMONSTER]

That's unbelievable.

Surely there must be some legal recourse for the mental stress and property damage!?!?!

I guess it would cost too much.

Maybe talk to a news outlet...?

I'm shocked and sickened how completely incompetent some of these authority personnel are.

Tbh I would like to think so, but the very real problem is that bringing a civil case to bear has to come out of my own pocket.

And I just don’t have a few thousand I can lay my hands on anymore, I used to, but not now.

And if I was to lose I would be libel for the cops legal and court costs, the stress of that does not sit well with me.

It absolutely is not about just getting money. It’s about making certain individuals accountable for their actions and hopefully being left alone for the future.

Ive considered selling my airsoft stuff, watch and car to fund it but if I had to sell them and I lost I don’t think I’d handle it very well.

 

[BALDYMONSTER]

im sure they are aware and im sure it will be in a future magazines, its to big an issue to miss and affects our sport and social media

I would really ally like to think so.

Its all too easy to just keep your head down for fear of sticking it above the parapet and getting it shot off. No pun intended.

But as a lifelong shotgun and firearms shooter, I have watched with despair at how the laws have been tightened, interpreted willy nilly and changed ever so slowly to restrict and further restrict the shooting communities hobbies, sports and past times.

 

[BALDYMONSTER]

You'd be surprised how much momentum the policeman's ball picks up once it's given a nudge and starts rolling.

Northumbria Police used an aircraft to take aerial pictures of the "crime" scene where a person was accused of eating an apple with intent.  The casus belli was that a copper thought she was using a mobile phone, went into red mist mode, and refused to wind his neck in when it turned out that he'd been wrong.  The Farce and CPS chose to back him to the hilt, apparently having wrapped up every other crime in the region:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-335291/Pipped-Woman-driver-fined-eating-apple.html

So while I'm minded to agree that there's likely some back story that we'll never know, the stubborn prosecution was entirely in character.

In in all honesty, hand on heart, there is truly no “back story”. 

If there was some sort of driving force, relevant previous convictions or anything else that would have alarmed the cops to take such action then come on, it would have been brought out at the trial, remember that this was all on public record?

And the local paper “Falkirk Herald” ran the story for three days, do we really not think they would have been doing their level best to dig up some dirt on myself? They didn’t even hint at anything at all that would suggest I was of particular interest or elevated threat.

And honestly guys, if I knew or even thought of any reason as to why they seemed such action necessary I would say. I’d end up looking pretty stupid to not do so.

Ok, so I haven’t been an angel, who has? But I absolutely do not have any sort of extensive precon at all to warrant all this.

I don’t even have my fingers crossed behind my back as I type this, lol.

 

[BALDYMONSTER]

I only hope that when this happens to someone else, they have the money and resources to go ahead with a civil case  as a stand against this sort of personal targeted attack and harassment so as to stop it from becoming yet another pointless persecution of anyone and anything that has anything to do with or even loosely resembles a big bad evil gun......

 

[Rogerborg]

But as a lifelong shotgun and firearms shooter,

The only thing I can think of is that if you have or had a shotgun or FAC, then that might might explain the SWAT-style arrest (found that now, what a circus - plainclothes, uniform and firearms, on a public street? What were they thinking?) on the basis that they had to assume it might have been a real firearm in the pictures / video.

However, that doesn't explain why they chose you of all people to investigate, unless they've actually got some shiny backside trawling Facebook shift after shift for anything remotely shooter related, pumping names into Friend Computer and seeing which ones flag up anything at all.

If you do decide to go ahead with a case against them the one thing that I can say with certainty is that police systems are fully audited and it should[*]be impossible for them to cover up the trail of anything that was recorded. Anyone truly independent who goes digging should[*]be able to discover something approximating the truth of how the case was handled.

Given that the firearms unit was involved, is PIRC already investigating your case?  At a minimum I'd want to be asking them to take a look.

[*]If Police Scotland's new system is operating correctly, although I've reason to believe that it's somewhat of a shitshow. Still, I'll be genuinely surprised if they've managed to mess up the auditing.

 

[Defender90]

The UK has become like Italy, a great country with an ancient history brought low. Heartbreaking and terrifying.

May I ask @Baldymonster, has there been any actual expression of contrition from any, or indeed all, of those involved? Whether private or public, is there likely to be? 

You say the "Young PF" was shaken when he realised what was actually happening, did he/she extend any kind of apology? Why did he/she keep going at it?

It's the details that stick in my mind, like your cctv camera being deliberately laid face down on the table. That's ... shall we say it looks to the layman like a bit of a giveaway that whoever did that knew they were doing wrong. 

 

[BALDYMONSTER]

 No apology at all, from anyone.

My lawyer and others in the legal profession all agreed that it was very strange and that it looked like it was coming from the top that this case was to go ahead and not be dropped regardless.

 

[BALDYMONSTER]

I have substantial grounds for pursuing compensation but I am not going to.

i simply cannot our myaelf or my girl through anymore stress like this.

The past few years have been tremendously stressful as it is.

Additionally, I have lost all confidence and faith in the Police now. I don’t believe for one second that if I was to pursue any case against them that they would do something else to me.

Whos to blame for this? I honestly think my so called “family” are behind all this. They have the money and legal connections to enable this kind of stuff.

They refuse to speak to me or have anything to do with me since I spoke up about years of abuse by my now brother in law. My “mother” is the most selfish, twisted and abhorrent individual o have ever known. It would not surprise me at all if she was behind this.

 

[EDcase]

The family issue is certainly a sad situation but it should not influence a 'professional' police force.

I can perfectly understand just wanting to put it behind you and moving on in life.

Best of luck for the future...