Officers ‘tried to shut down’ police bad driving page
Facebook page owner says he twice bowed to pressure from police to take down photographs and videos
A FACEBOOK page which turned the tables on traffic police by revealing their driving and parking habits has twice been removed after officers complained, it has been claimed.
The “Unmarked police cars of Cambridgeshire” page was set up to shame police for what it said was their poor parking and bad driving. It had more than 2,000 followers and received up to 125 videos a week of officers acting like they were “above the law”.
The site included photos of police allegedly speeding to catch drivers on their mobile phones, falling asleep while parked on double yellow lines and swerving across motorway lanes.
However, after becoming aware of the page, officers are said to have twice asked Facebook to take it down as it was “unfairly” targeting them.
Private messages sent to the site’s administrator said: “Your page has been brought to our attention regarding the contents. We believe it’s unfair … the contents could lead or be misinterpreted as victimisation of the police.”
The page administrator, who asked to be identified only by his first name, Mike, said: “I was a little bit intimidated because I was getting told to shut [the] page down and thought, ‘is it something illegal?’, so I backed down 100 per cent and the page came down in three days.”
The page was initially taken down in 2015, but similar messages were sent after a new page was set up entitled “Unmarked cars in Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire”. That page was taken down within two days
“So, I made the three counties one and they said ‘no’, and I said ‘fine, I’ll take legal advice’ and made a regional one,” Mike said.
The messages stopped after he created the current Facebook page; “Unmarked police cars in East Anglia”, encompassing police forces in Cambs, Beds, Herts, Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk on May 7 2015.
Mike said he and a team of three other volunteers run the page. He claimed some of the footage came from a camera on his own vehicle, and that he does not use footage that has been taken illegally.
“The funniest one … was actually taken by myself in Norfolk [of ] a BMW X5 that parked at the entranceway to a bus stop. The passenger jumped out and went to get a Chinese, at which point the bus came up behind him and the police car didn’t move – that’s really unprofessional. And I’ve just been sent pictures of a police officer in a fully marked-up police car writing up his notes crawling along in traffic.”
A spokesman from Cambridgeshire Constabulary said she was unable to confirm or deny the allegations due to their non-specific nature, but added: “We have a complaints mechanism in place which we would encourage any member of the public to use should they need to.”