>Brighton: Shut ITT

Again the policing was heavy. And so was the use of batons, pepper spray and attack dogs. One photojournalist covering the protest was savaged by a police dog. A second photojournalist was assaulted by police and the East Sussex police seemed to think it okay to put journalists under surveillance.

BJP report one.

It would seem that lessons have still not yet been learned by various police forces across the UK since the release of my NUJ funded docu-short Press Freedom: Collateral Damage. In fact, according to this BJP report the police are completely unaware of the press guidelines agreed by their own superiors.

Perhaps then, we can admit after over two years of the guidelines being in place, they are not working on the street. Perhaps we need the guidelines to be promoted to an actual hard law. Guidelines look great on paper. But try arguing those guidelines on the street and you are libel to be threatened with arrest for obstruction.

It is a bold statement, but I am making it.

I am sick to death of seeing my work colleagues getting hurt while trying to do their job. This journalist’s experience, and those of my colleagues, sets out a continuous pattern of abuse, ignorance, intimidation, harassment, surveillance and violence.

There is no excuse to baton a photographer, no excuse to pepper spray a photographer and absolutely no excuse to use a dog as an offensive weapon against a photographer.