Burble
21-02-2010, 18:47
Around lunchtime Tink and I headed to Tesco in the next town. After I parked up and was getting ready to walk into Tesco I turned around to see a Skoda Octavia VRS parked across 4 parking spaces opposite my car and a policeman getting out of it walking towards me.
I was asked the usual - was it my car, how long had I owned it and then specifically asked about the (private) plate - how long had I owned that, how long had it been on the car and so on.
Anyway, the policeman told me that there was a marker on the plate on my car and that I'd triggered 3 ANPR cameras in the last few minutes and that they had 'proceeded' to get to me.
After a bit of a chat he told me that on January 10th someone had called the police to say that my car was being used for the purposes of photographing a farm, speficially the locks on the gates. Tink remembered that on Jan 10th we had been driving back to my house having had lunch with my parents and we'd stopped in a layby so that she could take some pictures for the BD 52 picture thing.
At the time we both noticed someone looking at us (I was sitting in the car whilst Tink was taking photos) but we thought nothing of it. So yeah, he thought we were planning to rob to place so he noted down the plate on the car and reported us.
We explained to the nice policeman about the amateur photography he said to use that when he saw us he didn't quite think we were the sort of people he'd be talking to about theft from a farm.
After doing a person check on Tink and I he took some notes so that the marker could be removed from the car, thanked us for our time and left.
He was a really nice chap, not at all arsey or whatever. It's the first time in aaages I've had a chat with a traffic officer and he did a great job of dispelling the myth that they all walk around smashing headlights and then doing you for it.
So that was a slightly exciting start to the afternoon!
I was asked the usual - was it my car, how long had I owned it and then specifically asked about the (private) plate - how long had I owned that, how long had it been on the car and so on.
Anyway, the policeman told me that there was a marker on the plate on my car and that I'd triggered 3 ANPR cameras in the last few minutes and that they had 'proceeded' to get to me.
After a bit of a chat he told me that on January 10th someone had called the police to say that my car was being used for the purposes of photographing a farm, speficially the locks on the gates. Tink remembered that on Jan 10th we had been driving back to my house having had lunch with my parents and we'd stopped in a layby so that she could take some pictures for the BD 52 picture thing.
At the time we both noticed someone looking at us (I was sitting in the car whilst Tink was taking photos) but we thought nothing of it. So yeah, he thought we were planning to rob to place so he noted down the plate on the car and reported us.
We explained to the nice policeman about the amateur photography he said to use that when he saw us he didn't quite think we were the sort of people he'd be talking to about theft from a farm.
After doing a person check on Tink and I he took some notes so that the marker could be removed from the car, thanked us for our time and left.
He was a really nice chap, not at all arsey or whatever. It's the first time in aaages I've had a chat with a traffic officer and he did a great job of dispelling the myth that they all walk around smashing headlights and then doing you for it.
So that was a slightly exciting start to the afternoon!