I previously worked for a law enforcement group in another country. The legislation relating to our operational duties was comparatively simple (it was contained in only 3-4 separate Acts/Regulations which were normally quite clearly written). After coming to the UK and reading some of your legislation (professional interest) I find it is often spread across multiple separate documents and so far I have found very little modern (funnily enough the older stuff is normally much easier to understand) legislation that is actually reasonably understandable by the layperson (I know that Law must cover a lot of bases but it can still be made understandable).

My experience with UK laws (and I don’t even consider what each Constabulary has in terms of internal guidance and operational procedures) leaves me no doubt that the Police here have little chance of being able to fully understand their role… This means a PCSO is even less likely to know. I consider this issue as much to blame as the actual content of the legislation for many of the problems photographers are now facing.

We were bystanders and came into this just as the stop and search was being concluded. Had it been one of us that was being stopped and searched, I’m sure we would have asserted that it was unlawful and invited the PCSOs to call a Constable to attend.

It would have been better to call them out on it.