Journalists arrested whilst filming Just Stop Oil Protests on M25

On 08/11/2022, reporters were filming and photographing the Just Stop Oil protestors who were on a gantry over the M25.

The journalists (who clearly looked like journalists) were detained / arrested by the police while photographing and filming from a public footbridge. Any one of us, not just journalists reporting or filming etc, can film/photograph anything we can see from a public place.

One of the journalists, Tom Bowles also had the police turn up at his house at 11pm and searched it, taking away his daughters iPad. Rich Felgate was the other journalist who was arrested. See below for comments.

Rich Felgate - "Police had no interest in seeing press ID and handcuffed us instantly on arrival. They said they needed to search me for items which could be used to commit criminal damage. Obviously, they found nothing, so an officer said “just arrest them for conspiracy instead then. We were held in custody for about 13 hours and were questioned by the police, who tried to get me to reveal my journalistic sources and give them the pin to my phone. Tom's house also got searched by police and they took his daughter's iPad. I had to spell it out to the police many, many times that I'm a filmmaker, not a protester. I had to give rigorous details of my work (making a feature doc, being a @bectu member, screening at festivals, getting broadcast deals, winning awards, licensing footage to news outlets) and still they were extremely skeptical but eventually realised they made a mistake and released both Tom and I with no further action."

This looks like an abuse of power by the police. Are they making use of new powers relating to protests in the new Policing Bill? It appears to look like something from a Totalitarian regime. What do you think?

Another journalist - Charlotte Lynch, was also arrested and put in a cell for 5 hours, and again very clearly a journalist. I think there may have been more too.

I hope this is okay using this footage. There is no financial gain from doing so and am doing so to help spread awareness which is vital.

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