Sunday, 26th April: We found ourselves exploring north from our base south of the fishing and ferry port of Denia, keeping off the largest roads to see as much as we could of towns and villages en route. ---- All rights reserved. nd.com Read on...

Between Denia an Valencia is a world of citrus groves. Square mile after square mile of orange trees, cover the landscape in lush green speckled with fruit that looks fit to burst.

Here and there, the roadside is splashed with orange and yellow. Fruits gathered into large net bags, entice passers-by.

From a handful of bags clustered next to a weary wicker chair, to large displays, painted in in vibrant orange that equals the fruit itself, there is no need to visit your supermarket for fresh citrus produce.

But on a particular main stretch of road somewhere between Denia and Oliva, a whole other kind of roadsitlde fruit can be found.

The orange girls

The orange groves grow right up to the roadside. The thick walls of orange speckled green are broken only by sandy gravel access tracks every few hundred yards.

We drove past perhaps three of these, before I noticed a pattern: each such track sported a person sat on a portable, usually plastic, chair at it’s entrance. We then saw one with it’s chair alone and empty.

It took passing another few access tracks for us to register an important observation: all these solitary, waiting guardians of the orange groves, were women!* Not merely women but heavily painted, unfeasibly short skirted and high heeled women, each sat in the full glare of the sun facing, and with a close eye on, passing traffic

Our eventual suspicions of “proffessional” activities (our minds were far too innocent to deduce this immediately – you expected otherwise, I’m sure) were confirmed when one girls offered the truck driver ahead of us an unmistakingly inviting and fliratious wave (she appeared to be more proactive than the others, perhaps because she had apparently forgotten her seat).

What’s the story?

Image © All rights reserved.

From a more serious perspective, we heard discussions related to Russian and Rumanian sex trafficking in southern Spain region (though our experience was in the Costa Blanca). Whether these particular girls were Spanish or from other parts of the world was impossible to tell. 

I wondered whether the landowners were involved, accepting rent perhaps for the use of their orange groves, or whether they had little choice but to permit and tolerate what was happening. Personally, and sadly, I suspect the latter.

When over hearing a conversation about the similar Costa del Sol problems, such activity was described as being driven from more visible areas of towns, to outlying rural roads, in that particular case, centring on a particular roundabout. There is, like anywhere else, a darker, seedy edge to life in this region. But such activities do seem to be highly localised as we saw no other instances of open, public soliciting during our travels. 

*one of the factors inhibiting immediate comprehension of the nature of the waiting figures was that the third or fourth I saw appeared, at a breif glance, to be an unwashed, scruffy guy. A more specialist service perhaps?

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We regularly read cases where innocent individuals are, for want of a better word, bullied by Police officers into deleting photographs taken in public spaces. The justification seems to be Section 44 of the Terrorism Act, which many are reading as a legal control over what and where you can photograph in public. ---- All rights reserved. nd.com Read on...

Section 44

This section of the terrorism act has been criticised as giving the police all manner of power over public photography, but in fact, from a strictly legal perspective (and is not that what the Police are all about?) it is quite impotent. Here are the guidelines:

The Terrorism Act 2000 does not prohibit people from taking photographs or digital images in an area where an authority under section 44 is in place.  Officers should not prevent people taking photographs unless they are in an area where photography is prevented by other legislation.

In a recent BBC Radio 4 Law in Action program, the picture was clarified by Rupert Grey of media specialist law firm Swan Turton explained that Police may:

stop and search, look at what you have got and that is the limit of authority under that section. What appears to have been happening after that is they have, in some cases, arrested and then de-arrested the photographer. In other cases they have seized their material. In one case they deleted the material – and that is, in itself, a criminal offence.

This is encouraging for the legal rights of a photographer, and if a heavy-handed tactic is experienced, the law appears to be on our side. 

It is, however, a Police Officer’s interpretation of the law at the point of confrontation that is the most troublesome factor, however, and it seems from reports that some officers are either deliberately or ignorantly manipulating those ignorant of the law.

Section 43

This section, on the other hand, offers the Police far broader powers with regard to Terrorism. But it is not all bad. Again, from the Police guidelines:

If officers reasonably suspect that photographs are being taken as part of hostile terrorist reconnaissance, a search under section 43 of the Terrorism Act 2000 or an arrest should be considered.  Film and memory cards may be seized as part of the search, but officers do not have legal power to delete images or destroy film.  Although images may be viewed as part of a search, to preserve evidence when cameras or other devices are seized, officers should not normally attempt to examine them.  Cameras and other devices should be left in the state they were found and forwarded to appropriately trained staff for forensic examination.  The person being searched should never be asked or allowed to turn the device on or off because of the danger of evidence being lost or damaged.

There are two very interesting elements to this, particularly that Officers are directed to not normally attempt to examine equipment for fear of damaging evidence, even so far as not turning a device on or off. Section 43 does permit the confiscation of equipment, storage devices such as memory cards in particular, and to be retained for up to 48hrs and for up to 96hrs with the authority of a Chief Inspector.

There is one element of Section 43 that is worthy of note. Section 43 can only be used when there is “reasonable suspicion that the person is a terrorist”, which, though it sounds open to interpretation, is going to tie the Officer up in a mountain of paperwork – hence the far more commonly used Section 44. 

It is not as bad as it looked

There is clearly no legal right for a Police Officer to insist or request that any images are deleted, or that a photographer simply stops recording images. If they want to stop you under Section 44, then they also have no right of confiscation, just the right to examine images taken. Of course, the aggravation of going through the whole process is bad enough, regardless of the outcome, and it seems the incidents that have been reported boil down to a lack of understanding of the real rights of everyone involved.

There’s nothing new here, but with my photography ambitions aiming in a particular direction, this has now become relevant to me. I hope I’ll never need to draw on this knowledge, and I do hope I’ll not be at the wrong end of a Police officer without a clear understanding of my legal rights.

The official guidelines on Stop and Search in relation to terrorism
A lawyer’s point of view on Section 44

A question about sketching

The last burst of panic over these laws recently, specifically over rights regarding photographing the Police, get me thinking about other forms of image capture. Could a drawing, one which holds a recognisable image of Police and public buildings, for example, fall foul of the same laws? I am planning on putting that to the test!

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Our local Salvation Army brass band make a point of visiting a local green – I hesitate to define it as “village green” because ours is more akin to a “cul-de-sac green” – to play and bring the message of worshiping God on a Sunday. ---- All rights reserved. nd.com Read on...

It is a lovely sound to have wafting in from outside. Though not all local residents agree.

Talking with one of the group, I learned that they have had to alter the schedule of such unannounced public performances due to complaints by residents about the noise. This morning’s event happened around 10.30, an hour or more later than previously. I don’t know about you, but even if this had woken me up this morning, I could find no offense or annoyance in the sound of this type of music.

See larger images on flickr

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