And just like the movies, we play out our last scene…

Not a common offence but against the law all the same, recording films in the cinema can end people up in court.

Because it’s 2014 and pretty much now the future, nobody is content with experiencing life through the the medium of their boring old eyeballs.

That’s what people have been doing since we crawled out of the sea back in the day, and as this video shows, it’s not the way things are done any more.

The kidz (we spell thingz with a ‘z’ in 2014) much prefer to ‘dual screen’, experiencing things second hand through the relay of their phone camera rather than actually watching what is going on in front of them.

Whilst this may be annoying to musicians performing to an audience of glowing screens held aloft, usually the worst that is likely to happen from paying more attention to your phone than what is going on around you is an unexpected encounter with a lamp post.

An exception though, and one that the Investigation Team dealt with today, is when people sit in the cinema and having ignored the warnings about not using recording devices, decide to do just that and end up getting arrested for trying to bootleg films.

Now it’s not a particularly common thing we deal with but something that cinema staff are increasingly on the lookout for with the knowledge that culprits can be arrested and sent to court for even trying it.

The law we depend on comes from the Fraud Act 2006 (S. 6 if you’re interested) and also, if material is then distributed, some exciting offences under the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Whilst I’d like to be able to ‘patrol’ cinemas all day watching films, munching popcorn and keeping my eye out for people trying a spot of ‘camcording’, it’s not something we can really do so we’re dependent on not only cinema staff, but also members of the public being vigilant.

Bootleggers sometimes use cameras disguised as other objects (a tub of popcorn, as an example) and can stitch together images from one performance with audio from another (providing it’s the same film!) so if you see someone with a microphone, it’s a safe bet they’re up to no good.

We’re always keen to know when folk are up to no good so please bare in mind that if you happen to see someone in the cinema recording the film with more than just their eyeballs and their memory, it is a criminal offence and you should let the cinema staff know!

Trust Vs. Mistrust

As a police officer, on an average shift I tend to wear a range of different bits of kit to help assisting me in achieving my daily goal of punching crime on the nose.

Trousers are a given. I have a radio nattering in my ear, a can of CS spray that hasn’t been used once in four years, a torch, a USB stick for downloading CCTV footage, police-issue ‘bracelets’ and a range of other bits and pieces designed to make the job easier.

All in all and including the stab vest that I wear to prevent an anti-social skewering of my organs, the kit weighs about as much as a very small child, a large cat or some other object of equivalent weight to that of my kit.

Now it may seem strange that considering the less than pleasant experience of wearing all of the above on a hot day, I’d be keen to have another gizmo to carry but there is something that I’m keen to be issued that I don’t yet carry.

To quote the Gadget Show, the ‘tech’ I’m interested in is a body worn camera, a subject that I’ve visited before after the story last year about someone wearing an unfashionable pair of Google Glasses witnessing an assault.

Their issue to officers has been in the news again recently in light of the Mark Duggan inquest with the Met suggesting that they’d be worn by their firearms units to help boost transparency.

This can only be a good thing and similar steps have been taken by other forces with Hampshire Constabulary now using them as standard issue and trials of badge type devices being ran in Birmingham and as I understand it, to be extended to other areas of the Midlands too.

I think the feeling amongst many officers is that they’d be supportive of their use as the evidence that they gather is mutually beneficial to both the officers and the public.

For officers, they’d help cut down allegations of misconduct and incivility as interactions would be documented and there’d be no disputing who did what and who said what following incidents.

For the public, they help gather strong, valuable evidence that can be presented to the courts and the benefit of this would likely be fewer not guilty pleas and time saved for both police and the courts accordingly.

Now their introduction wouldn’t be cheap – the bill in Hampshire alone was over quarter of a million pounds – but as an investment considering the potential for future savings and not to mention the public reassurance associated with the transparency that they’d provide, I’m argue that this is worth the cost.

Us officers are proud of the job we do, we want to do that job to the highest quality we can and contrary to what some people might think, the handful of untrustworthy examples brought to light in recent news stories do not represent the other 99% of us.

I’d like to see officers wearing cameras as standard as I know that by doing so, they’d prove what I’ve said above is correct.

P.S. BBC-style disclaimer – Above video used as an example of how the cameras are used only, other brands of camera are available and I’ve no intention of endorsing this camera over any other that is available now, will be available in the future or that could have been brought a hundred years ago when photography was more exciting with hoods and explosive powder.