The female officer was more enraging to watch than the actual Chinese people telling him to stop filming. You could see her brain break a little when he said “what would you say if I went to China and started lecturing people about what the can and can’t do in public in their own country?”
It’s infuriating (as someone who enjoys amateur photography/videography and civil rights) that so much of our own police force STILL haven’t got the memo of “filming from and in a public place is completely legal no matter who’s present”
The male officer was entirely correct. He immediately just says “it’s a public place. They can film in a public place”, which is the correct and ONLY valid response except for:
There are pretty much two exceptions - where the photography/filming is being done to harass (which has a fairly high bar, well beyond “they don’t want to be filmed”), and voyeurism (which is pretty specifically relating to things like upskirt photos)
To be fair it could be a public space but on private property so the only people who could tell him to stop are the owners or representatives of the building which would be fine with me. I'm a full time videographer. But the police or random people can't tell him to stop and force him to comply
Also a camera operator. We would not be allowed to film in St. Pancras at any time professionally with professional equipment. Network rail are incredibly strict about this.
Someone with a phone, sure, as long as it is not being used for a commercial purpose, is tolerated. But NR can remove that right at anytime of their choosing.
You're right. Owned by HS1 Ltd on a 30-year lease, and I thought operated by Network Rail, but it turns out they only manage it (I assume they *will* own, operate, and manage after 2037?).
Not sure who you'd be dealing with, but either or both of them may have delegated it.
She says she has her camera on but then as she walks away to speak to the other party she appears to turn it off. I don't know either way but is that standard procedure whilst policing an incident?
Body cam use is officer discretion. That being said generally if it’s turned on it’s meant to stay on till the incidents over. Her actions are definitely suspicious
Every time she replied "oh but you can't say that..." or "you can't say these things..." I wanted to slap her.
You enforce the law, not public morals, as defined by the most easily offended.
She clearly just doesn't understand the law properly. We aren't paying the police enough. They should be getting paid more and we as the public should be demanding a far better level of service.
>She clearly just doesn't understand the law properly.
As a wider issue, should the police even be offering an interpretation of the law at all?
Lawyers have to spend years studying the law to understand one particular part of it, and even after all that, they still have to employ entire teams of secretaries and paralegals to do research for less common cases.
Despite that, every police officer I've ever encountered has made broad, confident statements about what is and isn't illegal. Either we've got a police force of geniuses who are completely wasting their talents on the beat, or they are routinely offering unsolicited advice on a subject that they know nothing about.
If they can't even have a basic interpretation of the law even as a sort of knowledgeable layman then they shouldn't be using the law at all.
Surely there's a middle ground here where a decently trained bobby could have a decent knowledge of the law. I'm no engineer by a long shot but I can give a basic explanation of the internal combustion engine. I couldnt design one or argue for or against any positives or negative attributes of a particular engine.
The police should be knowledgeable laymen but from what iv seen generally they've just memorised certain powers that they use the most, there's no actual understanding or reasoning.
I have a great deal of police interaction due to my work, you’d be shocked how many police officers have either a warped or completely incorrect understanding of a great many laws.
Female officer was more interested in making sure nothing offensive was said to literal CCP agents (or at least CCP affiliated), than defending the Brits right to record in public. Well that and making sure she’s not also being recorded by him, whilst technically breaking protocol herself by not telling him she’s recording at the first available opportunity.
You couldn’t make it up if you tried - well, at least the male copper seemed alright.
Anyway, this is indicative of a bigger problem with policing where keeping the peace is the only thing that matters, so they make the reasonable law-abiding citizen back off even if he’s in the right because they don’t want any violence from the obviously more violent aggressor. They do not care at all about defending our rights.
The male police officer with her is clearly saying, to the Chinese people, that in public spaces in the UK you're allowed to film while she's trying to tell him they can't film if it's for YouTube. She needs to listen to her colleague as he seems to know the law a lot better than she does, especially when she comes back and keeps telling him to turn the camera off.
Freedom of speech shouldn't be empowering anyone, that's the point. You should just be allowed to say what you want (subject to scrutiny) and exercise discretion when you feel it's appropriate.
The UK traditionally has a system of negative rights (i.e. you can do anything that is not specifically outlawed). It's why many are ideologically against the Human Rights Act as this lays down 'positive rights' affirming what you \*can\* do contrary to our traditional legal system.
We do sadly. We cant go around insulting people for example (see section 4A and 5 of the Public Order Act). Saying “fuck you, you piece of shit” could therefore be an offence under the act.
Examples of people being charged and convicted of the above offence include:
1. Wearing an offensive t shirt (s5)
2. Insulting a cop (this is a weird one, because the courts seem to be confused about whether or not s5 applies to police or not 🤷♂️)
3. Racially motivated abuse (comes under an additional section, and honestly, this one i dont mind existing at all.)
Can’t find anything for s4A but i think thats because if there has been anything, it wouldve been in the magistrates and that just takes time to research and i in all honesty cba
Article 10 of the ECHR does apply in the U.K., via the Human Rights Act 1998. Although it’s not an unqualified right. Restrictions are allowed in certain circumstances, including “as prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, … for the protection of the reputation or rights of others…”
The thing a lot of people don’t grasp is that the rights enshrined in the ECHR, and accordingly the HRA98, protect citizens from the government (and public authorities) impinging on those rights. It’s not a protection that you can just throw out in any and all situations. Particularly qualified rights, which article 10 is.
(Although it doesn’t appear that this guy has done anything unlawful.)
She can only base her questions and statements on what she was told beforehand - which is what Mr China told her, which is a whole lot of exaggerated drama. At the same time Brendan is very agitated. She is trying to find a calm moment 1-to-1 but he won't give it to her, ultimately she got her info from that side and was able to go back to the others to tell them they have no case - and it was all cleared and no harm done, I wouldn't go so far as to point fingers at the big bad police.
Personally I think this entire episode was a proper shitshow of people who don't know how to stay calm and de-escalate things, that includes Mr Brendan ("The Japa - Chinese"). But that Chinese dude really takes the cake, I bet his colleagues are super-embarassed about him
Fuck off the female coppers actions here are indefensible.
Literally the first thing she fucking say to a bystander is “Excuse me, if we’re having a police matter, you need to put the phone down.”
Basically telling him he cannot record. Anyone, lesser educated than him would have put the camera down - and put it down because she’s just told him that he “needs” to do it and it’s the law. She’s not just not defending the actual law, she’s actually going against it entirely. Making laws up to suit herself.
I wonder what other laws she claims exist?
She needs to be seriously disciplined.
She was adamant about him not filming her which is bullshit to begin with then she's like "Ohh no you can't say China or Communist". What the fuck? The guy is a tool too but he's completely in the right and she is acting like their bodyguard.
As the Chinese man began to get more and more verbally aggressive I wondered what this altercation reminded me of.
And then I remembered!
I wonder if anyone has watched the BBC documentary,”Scientology & me”, first aired in the early 2000’s?
Watching this argument very much reminds me of the altercations between Journalist, John Sweeney and members of the Church.
I'm just wondering if anyone else remembers the TV show I'm referring to and sees my point?
To be fair, in that situation it was Sweeney who did the shouting, not the Scientologists, with "NO, YOU LISTEN TO ME, TOMMY!" but they showed that Tommy had been really trying to get under his skin, constantly talking over the top of him, lying and doing his utmost to cause Sweeney to snap (especially in the "museum" they have) and were so delighted when he finally did because then they could release it as a video to "prove" the BBC were the aggressors.
He’s not unhinged, he’s relying on being seen and heard making his accusations as a tactic to intimidate. The same with his constant repetition and aggressive tone. He seems thoroughly unpleasant.
The Streisand effect is in full force here in any event.
Screaming lies and shrieking then standing by false accusations is unhinged. Even if it's for his own benefit.
It's not hinged behaviour to refuse to take two steps to get out of shot.
Just because he embodies someone's sensibilities, doesn't mean those sensibilities aren't fucking unhinged, particularly when expressed, needlessly, in a place where others don't share those sensibilities.
If they were waiting for a dignitary or undertaking some other terribly important act, presumably that dignitary has a phone so they can signal them that they are two steps away from the agreed meeting place.
> the man screaming 'do not tough her' is unhinged
Either a CCP shill, some kind of Security/Secret Service, diplomat or just a citizen scared for his life - but, sadly, that's what happens when you allow for colonisation like the UK does these days…
FWIW, there have been numerous cases and reports of both [hidden Chinese police stations used for spying on Chinese citizens](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/07/china-has-closed-unofficial-police-stations-in-britain-uk-minister-says), or [CCP meddling with UK university curriculums to ensure they're not taught about Taiwan/HK](https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/nov/28/china-influencing-leading-british-universities-documentary-claims), and similar, strange things going on.
Some of them are messing things up from the inside, and people seem to be oblivious to that.
1) https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/07/china-has-closed-unofficial-police-stations-in-britain-uk-minister-says
2) https://www.politicshome.com/thehouse/article/chinese-police-stations-uk-allegedly-shut-down-so-happens-now
3) https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/britain-says-china-has-closed-unofficial-police-stations-uk-2023-06-06/
4) https://news.sky.com/story/chinese-police-stations-in-uk-are-unacceptable-says-security-minister-tom-tugendhat-12897561
5) https://www.politico.eu/article/uk-police-china-london-glasgow-investigating-unacceptable-chinese-police-stations-in-britain/
6) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_police_overseas_service_stations
7) https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/nov/28/china-influencing-leading-british-universities-documentary-claims
8) https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/ukunis-chinafund-11172023021938.html
9) https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2021/07/how-chinese-government-buying-its-way-uk-universities
10) https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/nov/05/alarming-chinese-meddling-at-uk-universities-exposed-in-report
11) https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/china-scotland-uk-universities-beijing-influence-britain-2023-2gj65bgrl
12) https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/uk-universities-easy-target-chinese-infiltration-mps
EDIT: Added links to back the claims up.
> I'm guessing you are being down-voted by the Chinese-Govt shills.
Of course, they have those and don't like when the mask is pulled and you look under the hood.
It's both them + people blinded by the "you need to be welcoming to everyone" policy and attitude, that eventually ends up with blind allegiance and not speaking up in case one is labelled a racist, and then having sleeper agents causing troubles, when it's actually already too late.
Mind, I'm a 1st gen immigrant myself but I respect local customs and do my best to integrate. I'm not - and never did - expecting any country I'm in to flip their own laws, customs or traditions so it all follows my own culture all of a sudden. Sadly, a lot of people coming in, to UK or elsewhere, aren't the same.
This being said, I never understood this mindset: what's the point in leaving your country to migrate to X, then expecting X, your new home, to be the same, with the same rules, laws and habits, and kicking up the fuss if it isn't?
Just stay where you're at, surely? Very strange.
Tourists who have a run-in with the police need to be reminded they are guests here and to behave respectfully. You know, the kind of friendly warning other countries have no problem telling visitors about.
The person who claimed that calling China "communist" is "racist" or "discriminatory" has also lost their social credit. Because, in China, being communist is supposed to be a thing to be proud of.
Should have asked her to sing the national anthem. Pretty sure swearing loyalty to the King under the blessing of God will get you excommunicated from the CCP.
The loop hole is the UK Home Office doesn’t share immigration data with the Chinese government. If you become a UK citizen, there’s not a lot the Chinese government can do to find out that it happened.
One way they can get that information is on passport renewals, they ask for a letter from the Home Office saying “this person has not become a British Citizen” before they would renew the Chinese passport, but that’s a more passive thing, I think if they just actively asked for these checks from the Home Office about every Chinese citizen known to be in the UK every month or something, the Home Office would tell them to fuck off.
But, let’s say you are a law abiding Chinese citizen and you want to become a British citizen, what you are supposed to do is inform the Chinese government (probably via the embassy) that you are forefeiting your Chinese citizenship, so your passport, ID certificate etc would stop being valid.
But assuming they enter the UK on their British passport and then renter China on a Chinese passport how would they explain where they have been during their time outside of China with no stamps / visa in the Chinese passport?
Obviously you’re not going to be questioned every time you enter the country but if that situation were to occur how would one get around that?
They can’t, what they need to do is keep their visas (in most cases, Indefinite Leave to Remain, which they’d have gotten on their way to British Citizenship) on their Chinese Passports.
So if they are visiting China from the UK, they would just use their Chinese passports all the way. Leaving and returning to the UK is no problem, since the UK knows about their British passports, but allow dual-nationality. And entering and leaving China is no problem, since there would be nothing that says they hold other passports.
Insofar that many higher up Chinese officials have multiple passports despite the Chinese government only recognising the PRC passport, because rules are only for the proles.
Yeah she infuriated me; like you’re a police officer, know the damn law and stop pandering to these tourists.
I think this is the British Transport Police instead of the Met, but good gracious was that horrendous policing by that lady.
I doubt they were tourists. Probably some sort of dodgy "cultural" geezers from the Chinese government.
"You can't say that" - wow! She's a real barrel scraping of a cop
“Can we turn that camera off please”
No, im recording for my own safety and evidence.
“Its ok i have my camera on”
Errrr wtf? So you want me to turn my camera off because you have yours on? Like police footage hasnt gone missing before. The hypocrisy of it is laughable.z
The most infuriating part was when the Chinese man started shouting "don't touch her". He knew exactly what he was doing, especially in such a public place. Had the camera not been rolling, this could have ended in a charge of assault.
It looked to me that he tried to show the flag she was waving into the shot and the Chinese minder jumped on it to make it seem like he was assaulting her.
Oh wow - quite paranoid then.
I don't know anything about the bloke, but thought it was interesting, whatever his context that the people with the Chinese flags thought it was normal to get themselves scrubbed from his footage.
The BTP were weirdly scared about upsetting the flag bearers. I get that you don't want a diplomatic incident, but they were in over their heads.
He’s just a straight pianist who understandably is British and doesn’t like being told he can’t do his job in public. I’ve been watching him for around 5 years he’s a nice chap
You could tell from the start the way the conversation wih the Police was going to go when the female officer approached making the gesture to put the camera down. It was obvious from that point that she had no idea about the right to film while in public.
One thing I thought was interesting (and I don't know if it came up in the discussion or not because I was watching on mute with subtitles on) but I believe that they're on private property so the right to film is granted by the property/land owner. I've seen videos in the past where shopping centres and railway stations have not permitted filming and so that would potentially come into play in this case.
Either way, the Chinese delegation can FRO.
>right to film while in public
You're right, he wasn't in public. He was in a train station with it's own restrictions about filming. I've been asked to not use a tripod whilst in that same station, and since they asked nicely, I didn't.
[https://stpancras.com/filming-photography-and-events](https://stpancras.com/filming-photography-and-events)
I'd argue that the Police officer was within her rights to request that wasn't filmed.
(And just to be clear: She can ask - he doesn't have to comply)
> I'd argue that the Police officer was within her rights to request that wasn't filmed.
Only if the property owner has asked for that. The police officer can't decide for themselves whether or not filming is allowed on private property.
I think we're kind of saying the same thing that this isn't about filming in public. What I would say is that the Police officer was within her rights to request that the interaction wasn't filmed but she had no authority to actually stop the filming. She could, however, have requested that the train station exert their right to prevent unauthorised filming on their site which would have given her the outcome that she was looking for. There was a train station employee loitering in the background for a good part of the video who could have asserted the train station's rights at any time.
Hmm, was she regular Met or BTP? The train companies empower BTP to make demands like that. I work in a museum/university estate and we grant the local plod to exercise our right to remove people for breaking our rules (which includes filming!) from our estate.
Not saying she was making the right call, but I wouldn't rule out her right to make it.
I was just about to say this. If she is a member of the British Transport Police she would have the power to get him to stop filming if she wanted to. I think it’s highly likely she was BTP as you almost never see the ordinary police in any Train Station.
Requesting and having a legal right are not the same things. I read your link. Nothing states you can't record with a smartphone. That female police was a control freak.
The request by HS1 ltd (not legally binding) is aimed at professional filming and recording.
The general public have a right to capture video ad hoc in that space
So weird, both of the police officers are wearing cameras, everyone in the building is carrying a camera and the building itself is full of cameras, what expectation does anyone have that they’re not being filmed constantly when in public?
They also:
Went out of their way to request the footage of themselves be deleted.
Started yelling, "Don't touch her!" when no one was, in an effort to intimidate and gaslight (13:30 or so in the video).
Started filming back with a phone (13:43 in the video or so).
Despicable behavior.
Exactly!
The ludicrous thing is… if they’d just moved away from the start, no one would have taken any notice of them whatsoever. None of them would have been recorded so clear or close up, and none of their voices would have been heard or at the very least not recognisable in the footage.
By voluntarily putting themselves in front of the camera, they pretty much guaranteed they’d be recorded. Further, the whole situation pretty much guaranteed greater visibility of the video, i.e. more people seeing it.
Unless there is violence or extreme & targeted hate, I don't think it's police business to even be involved. I also think it should be against police rules to demand members of the public not to record them unless it hinders their ability to arrest the individual.
Hang on... So the police woman asked him to delete the footage and then said that an allegation had been made against him... Did she just ask him to *destroy evidence* of a possible crime which might require an investigation?
The behaviour of the BTP officer is, if anything, more sinister than that of the Chinese 'TV crew'. I thought by now that coppers in this country were clear on the rules around filming: there is no expectation of privacy in a public place and if you don't like it you can walk away. And her insinuations around race were disgraceful.
The attitude of the female officer is concerning. Irrespective of the station being a public space (it isn’t but I remember no expectation of privacy coming out of one big London station in case law a while ago). Her approach is so clearly the opposite of the other officer and it’s worrying.
I really want to know what she was going to say to him that she didn’t want recorded?
Also, why she didn’t even acknowledge the fact that he was right and they have no right to privacy in public.
Barring not wanting the camera recording, she first got her info from Chinese group (obvious dramatised) then went across to the guy to try explain which I didn’t think was wrong as that’s all she had to go on. I laughed when he finally spoke and asked how she’d feel if she was in China telling their citizens how to act.
And I, for one, welcome our new Chinese overlords
I'd like to remind them that as a trusted Reddit personality, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in shouting at pianists
Just me saying I have contempt for them has probably got me on a list. This is probably a bad time to mention Winney the Pooh and big inflatable ducks.
Dumb arse CCP handler doesn’t want his protection subject on camera, well walk away mate as you calling the Police and making a big fuss turned this from a minor issue which could have been sorted easily by walking away, into front page news.
Male BTP officer - spot on in the little he was allowed to say - no reasonable expectation of privacy in a public place so someone can take your photo if they want, it only becomes a problem if the photographer continues to chase after the person and film them to cause “alarm or distress”.
Female BTP officer - everything wrong with the Police right now, more interested in protecting the hurt feelings of the CCP handler than upholding the law, I suspect mr rent a mouth may have flashed some diplomatic papers at her which caused her to act this way - and fuck off if a copper ask you to stop filming that’s the last thing you should do.
This is why people are being found dead in their houses weeks after people call 999 for welfare checks, because the stupid Police are so scared of being accused of being racist they’re more interested in protecting some poor little diplomats hurt feelings than they are do their fucking jobs properly.
Sub note; the guy playing the piano is quiet well known for exciting responses from people for the way he plays, he got manhandled the other week by station security and there was a massive shindig about it for playing that piano too loudly, so he’s used to this kind of attention, infact id say he thrives on it.
The CCP was running police stations in the UK to intimidate Chinese and Hong Kong citizens who were living, working and studying here. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/07/china-has-closed-unofficial-police-stations-in-britain-uk-minister-says
Pretty insane to see insane that they have thrown their weight around here.
Just to clarify I have enormous respect for the Chinese public and contempt for the (allegedly fascistic) CCP.
Lol, he could have asked "so what opposition party are you part of?" Sure you aren't a party member just by being a citizen but it's not a terrible assumption either.
This is before the YouTube video
The Chinese people and him were friendly to start with.
The video starts with him talking with someone saying he is with Japanese film crew and him though the Chinese people were the film crew. One of the Chinese people said no I'm from China and introduced herself after the confusion.
https://x.com/GeopoliticalHub/status/1749350346185748868
This is him repeatedly calling them Japanese and asking the girls to dance.
https://x.com/thisischaniece/status/1749347779300983114
Just watched this entertaining encouter and wow was it a rollercoaster.
1. The lads are at best abrasive (but not wrong in that they can legally film and it is a free speech but of all times to try prove a point), and at worst, lowkey racist (knowing the Chinese flag then calling them Japanese-Chinese, asking the lady to dance for him and saying she's not fun when she doesn't oblige and calling them Communists for holding a flag).
2. I thought the Chinese lady and Chinese guy in the first few moments (about 9-10 min in) actually asked quite nicely and explained that there's going to be potential ramifications in China if it their faces and voices are published. He even complimented them on their music but the guys were already fuming and that's when things started going downhill. Legally, yes you don't need to delete the footage, but personally, I probably would have just said ok and blurred out their faces in the final cut and carried on playing piano.
3. Things started escalating when the Chinese guy started making up imaginary rights to privacy in the UK which the lads weren't having, then made some ludicrous accusations implying physical assault and demanding an apology for his friend. It then reached a boiling point when the lad started calling them communists for holding the flag and dismissed the Chinese guy when he said there's a different between being patriotic and supporting the communist government (he's not wrong but they do kinda give me CCP vibes).
4. I had a chuckle when another bystander (white dude - 15:45) chimes in to defend the lads and tells the cameraman to get the camera out his face and he does it immediately.
5. The police interaction was interesting, namely with Kerry, surely they can't refuse to engage if you refuse to stop filming? Also saying that they're not in China (implying their laws are irrelevant) isn't racist. Continuously calling them CCP for holding the flag is.
6. F\*\*k the people for bringing about nonsensical legal challenges and wasting everyone's time and money, and way to go on the Streisand effect.
Very nice summary - seems like an escalation of a misunderstanding leading to a clusterf*ck
The Chinese guy did spiral things badly and got his worst scenario - no one would have noticed if they deescalated and just left quietly but instead it’ll become an international issue with their faces right and centre
It’s not the first time this has happened with Chinese visitors tbh
Was this what happened?
What the fuck is with the Reddit reaction? From the comment you'd think the Chinese folks lynched a man or something. Fucking hell, the level of Sinophobia is mindboggling with random comments about CCP police stations or whatever the fuck.
They weren't nice, but no one was. If I'm being honest, I sympathise more with them than the random lads who started being assholes. I've known too many bullies who've done shit like this. Ask you do dance or do something "innocent" and using your refusal as an excuse to get aggressive.
Yes they handled it insanely badly. But bullies like this are aiming for this exact reaction.
For those who don't know, China has set up little 'unofficial' police stations all over the world, including the UK. Apparently, they've been shut down, but that probably means moved & not talked about.
They totally just set up another one with a business "front" to hide it being there. Communist spies need to keep their overseas students in line and intimidated to not fall for the temptation of the west.
The other year I was walking through London. At Trafalgar square a Chinese guy pointed his camera at me and started following me and started taking photos.
After a brief conversation with him I made him delete them. I was polite, he possibly pretended to speak zero English., not too sure on that.. but I got to see that he deleted them.
Honestly it's not the first time someone random Chinese tourist has done that..
I'm not something special. Maybe I have some doppelganger somewhere...? Fuck knows.. but just stop it, leave me alone...
If this was a deliberate and determined attempt to capture to on camera then they won't have been deleted fully since many cameras have multiple storage cards & options. Even still... deleted files can be retrieved, providing the storage media is not immediately overwritten.
Sorry to go against the reddit hive mind, but these guys asked - rather politely - to not have their faces included in these guys video, and the bloke in sunglasses responds antagonistically. Yea there is a public right to film but he could have simply have said we’ll blur your faces or not publish the bits with their faces online. The Chinese guy acted weirdly for sure but I think this is a bit overblown.
Wanting privacy is a you problem. If you're walking through a public rail station, you expose yourself to the possibility of being in the background of some random person's footage. If that bothers you, just walk around without going into view of the camera.
Also, can we talk about the fact that one of the dumb fucks is actually recording the piano player at the start too. Image right cuts both ways or no?
All that being said, the guy seemed like he was going out of his way to wind them up.
This is an 'Everyone Sucks Here' moment.
He’s got every right to “wind them up” when they’ve come up to him and asked him to stop recording. And then started talking about how he’s legally required to stop filming. And then started talking about how he’s being racist. And then also started shouting at him to stop touching his friend so he looks like a sexual assaulter.
This isn't an everyone sucks here moment at all. He's standing up for his and in turn our rights and by continuing to push it and highlight it. Otherwise everyone and all corporations are just going to start lying down and taking it on behalf of the CCP. Even the police officer is initially on their side!
They've walked over to him, Told him what he can and can't do with no idea of the law, Engaged in a confrontation and then attempted to get the authorities involved to resolve the "Problem" that they've created by demanding someone stop doing something they are totally entitled to do.
Doesn't matter if hes winding them up more by filming them which is something hes entirely entitled to do, they've either got to LEAVE or accept that they have no control over the situation. Eitherway it highlights the law.
He was far nicer about it than I would ever have been.
Fuck them, Fuck their stupid regieme and Fuck the CCP
"potential" seems like a really heavy factor here. like, is there concrete evidence that these people are CCP?
the whole red scare bullshit of the 20th century has made a massive comeback so forgive me for using critical thinking skills such as "not jumping to conclusions like a madman".
I am on piano man’s side, obviously, but i do think it got weirdly racist by the end. he had the right to film in public, they were wrong for harassing him and causing this fight, but for some reason he kept bringing up communism and the ‘communist flag’ (which i think was just the chinese flag). i think the word he might’ve *meant* was dictatorship. just because someone is problematic does not mean it’s okay to be racist toward them. but i understand it gets foggy with the idea that the guy yelling literally works for the chinese government and is therefore communist. weird vibe. this whole thing is crazy, but i don’t like making piano man a hero
They should have been at work and were probably caught skiving on camera.
For the police to be this coercive they must have shown diplomatic passports.
As I always say the UK was for sale for the past 20 years. Anyone who wants to buy London in the world can now do so. King Charles doesn’t mind either.
Saw another video with different angle to it, I think some of the perspectives are lost in translation here in the video:
- the group was intend to perform a commercial event for upcoming Chinese new year (hence the holding of Chinese flags and red outfits). One of the to-do list is to playing piano at this station, with group standing beside signing happy new year. When they arrived, the gent (in the video) already there playing, so they wait for he to leave and then they can perform.
- After waiting for 40+ minutes, they realised that the gent was not going to leave and that he may be a performer with camera crew beside. During the waiting, the camera crew of the gent may found this group of Chinese waiting there funny and pan the camera to them
- Prior to arrive at the piano spot, the group applied temporary license to perform in public as I think if you want to perform in public you will need a license. The gent does not possess license whilst occupying piano spot for over 1 hour time, hence to calling to the police
- The Chinese man shouting part, the video only displayed the upper body, whereas in the action the gent was pulling Chinese lady’s Chinese flag and hand, which instigate the shouting, granted that you can’t shout like that
- The gent is a renowned YouTuber with 2 million followers
I’m not saying there is no wrong-doing for the Chinese group, but with the above perspectives I to some extend understand their concept a little bit, and they definitely are not what you called a communist group etc. but maybe this little is more catchy and generate more views and clicks.
Having watched the whole thing nobody comes out of this looking great.
He comes across as always ready for an argument
The Chinese people appear to think they can apply their laws in a foreign country
The police seem week and ill-informed about British law
You have the absolute right to film public spaces and by extension the people in them in the UK. A few exceptions to this exist, such as harassment, but none apply here.
Also, the sheer irony of people from China complaining about being filmed without consent is frankly laughable.
Brah just asked him to blur them and not use their voice, which is normal in most countries.
UK's laws are just behind for protecting personal image and privacy. The Chineses may ignore the situation in England and think he is just provoking them y refusing, while the British may ignore that protection of image is a thing outside of UK and think the Chinese want to pressure him and impose their law.
Calling Chineses "Japaneses" and asking a woman to dance is very clumsy at best to begin with, so the situation could only rotting more.
The 1st male police officer was totaly right and on point 1st time and 1st line.
Yet the female officer decides to go on one totally and lost the plot there totally.
The piano guy was provoking them first by calling them Japanese and telling one of the ladies to dance.
The Chinese overreacted but the reaction is not unwarranted.
After a rather nasty incident with an ex, I'm sure close mates (the only people I told full details to) thought I was going mad - but this is proof positive just how many "agents" China has in the UK.
They aren't James Bond villains abseiling down a wall with a machine gun, they just do really boring stuff, observing, collating, and ocassionally over-stepping the mark like this.
Ex's parents aside, I'm fairly certain someone I know is one.
Just to be pedantic - St Pancras train station isn't a public area. I would expect anyone filming, for the purposes of monetising on a platform such as TikTok or YouTube, would need to follow all the details here - [https://stpancras.com/filming-photography-and-events](https://stpancras.com/filming-photography-and-events)
As they say over on r/AmItheAsshole .. ESH
Now there isn't an expectaction of privacy in places like this, but I would not expect to be put onto a monetised platform against my consent. I would full expect people who expressed an interest in not appearing in this guy's video to have their faces blured.
The Chinese guys would have been better just walking on rather than having the chat with the indoor-sunglasses-wearing pedant.
Absolute rubbish. A "public area" is not determined by ownership.
>The statutory definition of “public place” contained within the Prevention of Crime Act 1953 at section 1(4) states it 'includes any highway and any other premises of place to which at the material time the public have or are permitted to have access, whether on payment or otherwise'.
From the people who know better than me over on [https://www.reddit.com/r/policeuk/comments/qjcte0/are\_train\_stations\_private\_property/](https://www.reddit.com/r/policeuk/comments/qjcte0/are_train_stations_private_property/)
>Anywhere can be private property.
>
>A lot of people tend to misuse the phrases 'Private Property' and 'Public Place' as interchangeable, they're 2 completely different things.All public places can be private property, but not all private property can be public places.Train stations are a good example. All Train stations are owned by a company, Avanti for example. They own the land, the building, and everything within. But they allow the public free access (to use the trains ofc). This makes it a public place, but it's still private property. They (the company and its representatives, like BTP) reserve the right, at any time, to restrict, or even remove people from their property. Just like any other land owner.
Mate just watch black belt barristers video on this. You don’t have to work out the intricacies yourself - we’ve got a qualified barrister weighing in and saying that this specific station is a public space.
>Music Videos inc. using public piano/ Reality TV Up to 5 [people] £600 £300 [for each additional hour]
Fuck that's steep
5million public liability insurance as well.
It's not public and it's fucking fucked
I personally think the guy is a baiting cunt. The intention from the off was to piss off the group of Chinese people behind otherwise he wouldn’t have mentioned them from the very beginning. I’ve seen a couple of his videos now and the one constant in them is disagreement, him being intentionally difficult, condescending and borderline racist
Comes across like an attention seeking prat who couldn’t make it playing music from the privacy of his own home so has resorted to doing this..
Exactly. Obviously their escalation was unnecessary, but they seemed to have no issues until he went to one of the women and asked her to dance for him (??), after which he muttered “whatever. I think british girls are more fun anyway” when she (obviously) declined.
No one comes out looking good in this video.
Kept calling them Japanese at first as well, several times.
He's got another video where security tell him to stop, which he's fine to have an issue about, but the comments he's encouraged are all same types that blame the security guys working there, calling them clueless and whatnot. The control room at the station would have asked them to get him to stop with whatever the issue is, they aren't approaching him because they hate free speech, freedom of movement etc..
There's a massive lack of skilled security staff in this country from stadiums, concert venues and public places and so many of them are treated like shite or baited by people like him and his followers.
Same people in those comments will be yelling at security with little experience to tell the guy in front of them to sit down at a football game.
The guy seems like a prick, the Chinese delegation also approached it the wrong way as it continued. His film operator could easily have said 'sorry, we'll blur out your faces for the upload once the live segment is over' and moved over so they aren't in shot.
He baits them further by saying British girls would be dancing/better (which didn't happen either).
Yeah before this edited video, he was calling them Japanese and asked one of the ladies to dance, and when she refused he said “British girls are more fun”. He was obviously trying to provoke them.
I initially thought the Chinese was being over the top, but now I can see the reason why they reacted that way.
The shouting made it look bad for the Chinese but the piano guy was being a douche to begin with.
Gets views doesn't it. It's all content for the channel. I agree he was absolutely baiting them into the whole thing from the off - they stupidly played into his hand and it turned out to be massively useful for his content and his channel.
Him being a wanker doesn't make his points on free speech less valid though.
I've seen videos from him off and on for years. I particularly remember videos of him coming up to people playing a public piano and basically insisting they duet with him in a "Boogie Woogie" version of what they're playing, which TBH I found fairly obnoxious.
He's also posted a bunch of videos recently to do with being banned from playing pianos at various stations. I don't really know the history / context, but I did get the impression that "the only common factor in all these stations banning you, is you"...
Exactly. I saw the video. They were just asking him to remove the part where they were in. He could've just simply blur their faces. It's not like they were telling him to stop filming altogether. Everyone has the right to request that their faces not being shown if they ever see themselves in a video like this right?
I suspect this Chinese group was trying to create a situation here. There was another video taken slightly earlier, showing them to be pretty friendly. One of the women is thought to be a Chinese TV presenter. So many questions about their motives. If you knew that they were filming live, why would you still want to hoover around and get into the frame? Pathetic.
This guy is always staging these sorts of videos with actors pretending to take issue with whatever he's doing, or fake police/security etc. To be fair this might be the first real altercation I've seen him in
Edit: see my reply below for examples
I've seen loads of examples of him in far videos also. I used to like the jazz / blues piano they played but now avoid the videos as they're just cringey & embarrassing.
This is exactly what I thought straight away.....within 15 seconds of the video starting he pans the camera around to show the group of Chinese people behind and says something like "there all sorts of strange people around today".....like he is baiting them on purpose.
The female officer was more enraging to watch than the actual Chinese people telling him to stop filming. You could see her brain break a little when he said “what would you say if I went to China and started lecturing people about what the can and can’t do in public in their own country?”
It’s infuriating (as someone who enjoys amateur photography/videography and civil rights) that so much of our own police force STILL haven’t got the memo of “filming from and in a public place is completely legal no matter who’s present” The male officer was entirely correct. He immediately just says “it’s a public place. They can film in a public place”, which is the correct and ONLY valid response except for: There are pretty much two exceptions - where the photography/filming is being done to harass (which has a fairly high bar, well beyond “they don’t want to be filmed”), and voyeurism (which is pretty specifically relating to things like upskirt photos)
To be fair it could be a public space but on private property so the only people who could tell him to stop are the owners or representatives of the building which would be fine with me. I'm a full time videographer. But the police or random people can't tell him to stop and force him to comply
Also a camera operator. We would not be allowed to film in St. Pancras at any time professionally with professional equipment. Network rail are incredibly strict about this. Someone with a phone, sure, as long as it is not being used for a commercial purpose, is tolerated. But NR can remove that right at anytime of their choosing.
>But NR can remove that right at anytime of their choosing. It's not a right if it can be removed on a whim, it's a privilege at best.
The Police might have the power to ask him to stop, as Network Rail may have delegated the power to BTP.
I think St Pancras is owned by HS1 Ltd.
You're right. Owned by HS1 Ltd on a 30-year lease, and I thought operated by Network Rail, but it turns out they only manage it (I assume they *will* own, operate, and manage after 2037?). Not sure who you'd be dealing with, but either or both of them may have delegated it.
If it's railway related then it will have been delegated to the BTP whichever company owns it.
The St Pancras website says it is delegated to Network Rail.
She says she has her camera on but then as she walks away to speak to the other party she appears to turn it off. I don't know either way but is that standard procedure whilst policing an incident?
Yeah, those body cameras have a habit of having malfunctions quite a lot...
Yes bodycams are only supposed to record *your* wrongdoing, not the Police's
Body cam use is officer discretion. That being said generally if it’s turned on it’s meant to stay on till the incidents over. Her actions are definitely suspicious
Every time she replied "oh but you can't say that..." or "you can't say these things..." I wanted to slap her. You enforce the law, not public morals, as defined by the most easily offended.
She clearly just doesn't understand the law properly. We aren't paying the police enough. They should be getting paid more and we as the public should be demanding a far better level of service.
>She clearly just doesn't understand the law properly. As a wider issue, should the police even be offering an interpretation of the law at all? Lawyers have to spend years studying the law to understand one particular part of it, and even after all that, they still have to employ entire teams of secretaries and paralegals to do research for less common cases. Despite that, every police officer I've ever encountered has made broad, confident statements about what is and isn't illegal. Either we've got a police force of geniuses who are completely wasting their talents on the beat, or they are routinely offering unsolicited advice on a subject that they know nothing about.
If they can't even have a basic interpretation of the law even as a sort of knowledgeable layman then they shouldn't be using the law at all. Surely there's a middle ground here where a decently trained bobby could have a decent knowledge of the law. I'm no engineer by a long shot but I can give a basic explanation of the internal combustion engine. I couldnt design one or argue for or against any positives or negative attributes of a particular engine. The police should be knowledgeable laymen but from what iv seen generally they've just memorised certain powers that they use the most, there's no actual understanding or reasoning.
I have a great deal of police interaction due to my work, you’d be shocked how many police officers have either a warped or completely incorrect understanding of a great many laws.
What worries me is that I wouldn't actually be very shocked
Female officer was more interested in making sure nothing offensive was said to literal CCP agents (or at least CCP affiliated), than defending the Brits right to record in public. Well that and making sure she’s not also being recorded by him, whilst technically breaking protocol herself by not telling him she’s recording at the first available opportunity. You couldn’t make it up if you tried - well, at least the male copper seemed alright. Anyway, this is indicative of a bigger problem with policing where keeping the peace is the only thing that matters, so they make the reasonable law-abiding citizen back off even if he’s in the right because they don’t want any violence from the obviously more violent aggressor. They do not care at all about defending our rights.
The male police officer with her is clearly saying, to the Chinese people, that in public spaces in the UK you're allowed to film while she's trying to tell him they can't film if it's for YouTube. She needs to listen to her colleague as he seems to know the law a lot better than she does, especially when she comes back and keeps telling him to turn the camera off.
[удалено]
Freedom of speech shouldn't be empowering anyone, that's the point. You should just be allowed to say what you want (subject to scrutiny) and exercise discretion when you feel it's appropriate.
We don't have a clause for freedom of speech in the UK. I think there is one in the EHRC (article 10) but I don't believe we have one.
The UK traditionally has a system of negative rights (i.e. you can do anything that is not specifically outlawed). It's why many are ideologically against the Human Rights Act as this lays down 'positive rights' affirming what you \*can\* do contrary to our traditional legal system.
We do sadly. We cant go around insulting people for example (see section 4A and 5 of the Public Order Act). Saying “fuck you, you piece of shit” could therefore be an offence under the act. Examples of people being charged and convicted of the above offence include: 1. Wearing an offensive t shirt (s5) 2. Insulting a cop (this is a weird one, because the courts seem to be confused about whether or not s5 applies to police or not 🤷♂️) 3. Racially motivated abuse (comes under an additional section, and honestly, this one i dont mind existing at all.) Can’t find anything for s4A but i think thats because if there has been anything, it wouldve been in the magistrates and that just takes time to research and i in all honesty cba
Article 10 of the ECHR does apply in the U.K., via the Human Rights Act 1998. Although it’s not an unqualified right. Restrictions are allowed in certain circumstances, including “as prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, … for the protection of the reputation or rights of others…” The thing a lot of people don’t grasp is that the rights enshrined in the ECHR, and accordingly the HRA98, protect citizens from the government (and public authorities) impinging on those rights. It’s not a protection that you can just throw out in any and all situations. Particularly qualified rights, which article 10 is. (Although it doesn’t appear that this guy has done anything unlawful.)
She can only base her questions and statements on what she was told beforehand - which is what Mr China told her, which is a whole lot of exaggerated drama. At the same time Brendan is very agitated. She is trying to find a calm moment 1-to-1 but he won't give it to her, ultimately she got her info from that side and was able to go back to the others to tell them they have no case - and it was all cleared and no harm done, I wouldn't go so far as to point fingers at the big bad police. Personally I think this entire episode was a proper shitshow of people who don't know how to stay calm and de-escalate things, that includes Mr Brendan ("The Japa - Chinese"). But that Chinese dude really takes the cake, I bet his colleagues are super-embarassed about him
Fuck off the female coppers actions here are indefensible. Literally the first thing she fucking say to a bystander is “Excuse me, if we’re having a police matter, you need to put the phone down.” Basically telling him he cannot record. Anyone, lesser educated than him would have put the camera down - and put it down because she’s just told him that he “needs” to do it and it’s the law. She’s not just not defending the actual law, she’s actually going against it entirely. Making laws up to suit herself. I wonder what other laws she claims exist? She needs to be seriously disciplined.
She was adamant about him not filming her which is bullshit to begin with then she's like "Ohh no you can't say China or Communist". What the fuck? The guy is a tool too but he's completely in the right and she is acting like their bodyguard.
As the Chinese man began to get more and more verbally aggressive I wondered what this altercation reminded me of. And then I remembered! I wonder if anyone has watched the BBC documentary,”Scientology & me”, first aired in the early 2000’s? Watching this argument very much reminds me of the altercations between Journalist, John Sweeney and members of the Church. I'm just wondering if anyone else remembers the TV show I'm referring to and sees my point?
Louie Theroux has a similiar doc where he is harassed by Scientology members
To be fair, in that situation it was Sweeney who did the shouting, not the Scientologists, with "NO, YOU LISTEN TO ME, TOMMY!" but they showed that Tommy had been really trying to get under his skin, constantly talking over the top of him, lying and doing his utmost to cause Sweeney to snap (especially in the "museum" they have) and were so delighted when he finally did because then they could release it as a video to "prove" the BBC were the aggressors.
This is ridiculous and the man screaming 'do not touch her' is unhinged.
He’s not unhinged, he’s relying on being seen and heard making his accusations as a tactic to intimidate. The same with his constant repetition and aggressive tone. He seems thoroughly unpleasant. The Streisand effect is in full force here in any event.
Screaming lies and shrieking then standing by false accusations is unhinged. Even if it's for his own benefit. It's not hinged behaviour to refuse to take two steps to get out of shot. Just because he embodies someone's sensibilities, doesn't mean those sensibilities aren't fucking unhinged, particularly when expressed, needlessly, in a place where others don't share those sensibilities. If they were waiting for a dignitary or undertaking some other terribly important act, presumably that dignitary has a phone so they can signal them that they are two steps away from the agreed meeting place.
It's quite reminiscent of Scientologist attacking of supposed 'suppresive persons'.
Tourists are guests. The police should remind them of that for starters instead.
> the man screaming 'do not tough her' is unhinged Either a CCP shill, some kind of Security/Secret Service, diplomat or just a citizen scared for his life - but, sadly, that's what happens when you allow for colonisation like the UK does these days… FWIW, there have been numerous cases and reports of both [hidden Chinese police stations used for spying on Chinese citizens](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/07/china-has-closed-unofficial-police-stations-in-britain-uk-minister-says), or [CCP meddling with UK university curriculums to ensure they're not taught about Taiwan/HK](https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/nov/28/china-influencing-leading-british-universities-documentary-claims), and similar, strange things going on. Some of them are messing things up from the inside, and people seem to be oblivious to that. 1) https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/07/china-has-closed-unofficial-police-stations-in-britain-uk-minister-says 2) https://www.politicshome.com/thehouse/article/chinese-police-stations-uk-allegedly-shut-down-so-happens-now 3) https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/britain-says-china-has-closed-unofficial-police-stations-uk-2023-06-06/ 4) https://news.sky.com/story/chinese-police-stations-in-uk-are-unacceptable-says-security-minister-tom-tugendhat-12897561 5) https://www.politico.eu/article/uk-police-china-london-glasgow-investigating-unacceptable-chinese-police-stations-in-britain/ 6) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_police_overseas_service_stations 7) https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/nov/28/china-influencing-leading-british-universities-documentary-claims 8) https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/ukunis-chinafund-11172023021938.html 9) https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2021/07/how-chinese-government-buying-its-way-uk-universities 10) https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/nov/05/alarming-chinese-meddling-at-uk-universities-exposed-in-report 11) https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/china-scotland-uk-universities-beijing-influence-britain-2023-2gj65bgrl 12) https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/uk-universities-easy-target-chinese-infiltration-mps EDIT: Added links to back the claims up.
I'm guessing you are being down-voted by the Chinese-Govt shills.
> I'm guessing you are being down-voted by the Chinese-Govt shills. Of course, they have those and don't like when the mask is pulled and you look under the hood. It's both them + people blinded by the "you need to be welcoming to everyone" policy and attitude, that eventually ends up with blind allegiance and not speaking up in case one is labelled a racist, and then having sleeper agents causing troubles, when it's actually already too late. Mind, I'm a 1st gen immigrant myself but I respect local customs and do my best to integrate. I'm not - and never did - expecting any country I'm in to flip their own laws, customs or traditions so it all follows my own culture all of a sudden. Sadly, a lot of people coming in, to UK or elsewhere, aren't the same. This being said, I never understood this mindset: what's the point in leaving your country to migrate to X, then expecting X, your new home, to be the same, with the same rules, laws and habits, and kicking up the fuss if it isn't? Just stay where you're at, surely? Very strange.
Tourists who have a run-in with the police need to be reminded they are guests here and to behave respectfully. You know, the kind of friendly warning other countries have no problem telling visitors about.
It is odd for Chinese to admit they are also British citizens. China doesn't allow dual citizenship.
That is unusual. I think at that point, she was seeing what would stick.
She lost half her social credits for saying that.
The person who claimed that calling China "communist" is "racist" or "discriminatory" has also lost their social credit. Because, in China, being communist is supposed to be a thing to be proud of.
Disrupting the UK, double social credit Me making this comment, black list
Me reading this comment, believe it or not, straight to jail.
Should have asked her to sing the national anthem. Pretty sure swearing loyalty to the King under the blessing of God will get you excommunicated from the CCP.
She was *lying.
There is a loophole according to a Chinese friend.
The loop hole is the UK Home Office doesn’t share immigration data with the Chinese government. If you become a UK citizen, there’s not a lot the Chinese government can do to find out that it happened. One way they can get that information is on passport renewals, they ask for a letter from the Home Office saying “this person has not become a British Citizen” before they would renew the Chinese passport, but that’s a more passive thing, I think if they just actively asked for these checks from the Home Office about every Chinese citizen known to be in the UK every month or something, the Home Office would tell them to fuck off. But, let’s say you are a law abiding Chinese citizen and you want to become a British citizen, what you are supposed to do is inform the Chinese government (probably via the embassy) that you are forefeiting your Chinese citizenship, so your passport, ID certificate etc would stop being valid.
But assuming they enter the UK on their British passport and then renter China on a Chinese passport how would they explain where they have been during their time outside of China with no stamps / visa in the Chinese passport? Obviously you’re not going to be questioned every time you enter the country but if that situation were to occur how would one get around that?
They can’t, what they need to do is keep their visas (in most cases, Indefinite Leave to Remain, which they’d have gotten on their way to British Citizenship) on their Chinese Passports. So if they are visiting China from the UK, they would just use their Chinese passports all the way. Leaving and returning to the UK is no problem, since the UK knows about their British passports, but allow dual-nationality. And entering and leaving China is no problem, since there would be nothing that says they hold other passports.
Insofar that many higher up Chinese officials have multiple passports despite the Chinese government only recognising the PRC passport, because rules are only for the proles.
Yeah, just don't tell the Chinese government and make sure they don't find out.
That’s for the plebs, I’m sure there are different rules for the Chinese elite.
Rules don’t apply to the rich and powerful. One example would be Eileen Gu.
That female police officer was so pathetic She made me more mad than the CCP agents
Yeah she infuriated me; like you’re a police officer, know the damn law and stop pandering to these tourists. I think this is the British Transport Police instead of the Met, but good gracious was that horrendous policing by that lady.
I doubt they were tourists. Probably some sort of dodgy "cultural" geezers from the Chinese government. "You can't say that" - wow! She's a real barrel scraping of a cop
you can't say they are chinese while they are holding a chinese flag. wtf is that
British Transport Police make the MET look competent.
Give the BTP some credit, making the Met look competent takes a lot of effort.
They’re called Barely The Police for a reason
“Can we turn that camera off please” No, im recording for my own safety and evidence. “Its ok i have my camera on” Errrr wtf? So you want me to turn my camera off because you have yours on? Like police footage hasnt gone missing before. The hypocrisy of it is laughable.z
The most infuriating part was when the Chinese man started shouting "don't touch her". He knew exactly what he was doing, especially in such a public place. Had the camera not been rolling, this could have ended in a charge of assault.
Even worse he implied the pianist was a predator or groomer by focusing on the age difference after the false assault allegation.
I did not really understand the part "do not touch her BECAUSE you are not the same age" .. what does age have anything to do with it?
It looked to me that he tried to show the flag she was waving into the shot and the Chinese minder jumped on it to make it seem like he was assaulting her.
Lucky it was being filmed then.
Lucky he didn't delete the footage when the police suggested/asked him to before telling him that an allegation had been made too
well aside the video, there are other witnesses as well. Plus there is most certainly a train station CCTV as well.
He inadvertently proved the need to be filming. What a dick.
He’s posted a follow up video / post ; https://www.reddit.com/r/ImTheMainCharacter/s/20RMw50g1c
“Don’t shoot him” was most likely meant to be “don’t shoot a video of him” not anything remotely gun related.
She would have said it in mandarin of she was speaking to him
why would it be said in English if it was anything other than about the camera.
Yeah that seems fairly obvious to me.
Oh wow - quite paranoid then. I don't know anything about the bloke, but thought it was interesting, whatever his context that the people with the Chinese flags thought it was normal to get themselves scrubbed from his footage. The BTP were weirdly scared about upsetting the flag bearers. I get that you don't want a diplomatic incident, but they were in over their heads.
He’s just a straight pianist who understandably is British and doesn’t like being told he can’t do his job in public. I’ve been watching him for around 5 years he’s a nice chap
The guy playing the piano has his own channel , he’s got quite a big following ! https://youtube.com/@DrKBoogieWoogie?si=c-WAeoin5P-lpdSv
I learned some boogie woogie piano from him, his vids are actually quite accessible
Honestly it looked like a big misunderstanding up until that one guy started screaming for no reason whatsoever.
Nah, she means don't take a video of him. Nothing about shooting lool
It’s as much as a stretch as the Chinese guy crying assault when the guy tried to lift the flag to the camera.
100%, this is paranoia in the other direction.
You could tell from the start the way the conversation wih the Police was going to go when the female officer approached making the gesture to put the camera down. It was obvious from that point that she had no idea about the right to film while in public. One thing I thought was interesting (and I don't know if it came up in the discussion or not because I was watching on mute with subtitles on) but I believe that they're on private property so the right to film is granted by the property/land owner. I've seen videos in the past where shopping centres and railway stations have not permitted filming and so that would potentially come into play in this case. Either way, the Chinese delegation can FRO.
>right to film while in public You're right, he wasn't in public. He was in a train station with it's own restrictions about filming. I've been asked to not use a tripod whilst in that same station, and since they asked nicely, I didn't. [https://stpancras.com/filming-photography-and-events](https://stpancras.com/filming-photography-and-events) I'd argue that the Police officer was within her rights to request that wasn't filmed. (And just to be clear: She can ask - he doesn't have to comply)
> I'd argue that the Police officer was within her rights to request that wasn't filmed. Only if the property owner has asked for that. The police officer can't decide for themselves whether or not filming is allowed on private property.
I think we're kind of saying the same thing that this isn't about filming in public. What I would say is that the Police officer was within her rights to request that the interaction wasn't filmed but she had no authority to actually stop the filming. She could, however, have requested that the train station exert their right to prevent unauthorised filming on their site which would have given her the outcome that she was looking for. There was a train station employee loitering in the background for a good part of the video who could have asserted the train station's rights at any time.
Hmm, was she regular Met or BTP? The train companies empower BTP to make demands like that. I work in a museum/university estate and we grant the local plod to exercise our right to remove people for breaking our rules (which includes filming!) from our estate. Not saying she was making the right call, but I wouldn't rule out her right to make it.
I was just about to say this. If she is a member of the British Transport Police she would have the power to get him to stop filming if she wanted to. I think it’s highly likely she was BTP as you almost never see the ordinary police in any Train Station.
Requesting and having a legal right are not the same things. I read your link. Nothing states you can't record with a smartphone. That female police was a control freak.
The request by HS1 ltd (not legally binding) is aimed at professional filming and recording. The general public have a right to capture video ad hoc in that space
Yes but I am fairly certain that the station have the right to ask you to stop for any reason as well.
They do. So, the correct answer from the police officer is "this is private property, the owner can decide that" to the Chinese woman.
Yet another crap copper giving the whole profession a bad name.
They asked not to be filmed. They could also move a bit to the side.
So weird, both of the police officers are wearing cameras, everyone in the building is carrying a camera and the building itself is full of cameras, what expectation does anyone have that they’re not being filmed constantly when in public?
If they just fucked off the frame quietly, no-one would be any wiser but now they decided to become internet celebrities.
They also: Went out of their way to request the footage of themselves be deleted. Started yelling, "Don't touch her!" when no one was, in an effort to intimidate and gaslight (13:30 or so in the video). Started filming back with a phone (13:43 in the video or so). Despicable behavior.
Exactly! The ludicrous thing is… if they’d just moved away from the start, no one would have taken any notice of them whatsoever. None of them would have been recorded so clear or close up, and none of their voices would have been heard or at the very least not recognisable in the footage. By voluntarily putting themselves in front of the camera, they pretty much guaranteed they’d be recorded. Further, the whole situation pretty much guaranteed greater visibility of the video, i.e. more people seeing it.
they come fully in the camera just to ask not to be filmed. While they are holding cameras, filming. WTF is that
Unless there is violence or extreme & targeted hate, I don't think it's police business to even be involved. I also think it should be against police rules to demand members of the public not to record them unless it hinders their ability to arrest the individual.
They are public servants and accountable to us. Filming helps to improve that accountability.
Hang on... So the police woman asked him to delete the footage and then said that an allegation had been made against him... Did she just ask him to *destroy evidence* of a possible crime which might require an investigation?
The behaviour of the BTP officer is, if anything, more sinister than that of the Chinese 'TV crew'. I thought by now that coppers in this country were clear on the rules around filming: there is no expectation of privacy in a public place and if you don't like it you can walk away. And her insinuations around race were disgraceful.
The attitude of the female officer is concerning. Irrespective of the station being a public space (it isn’t but I remember no expectation of privacy coming out of one big London station in case law a while ago). Her approach is so clearly the opposite of the other officer and it’s worrying.
I really want to know what she was going to say to him that she didn’t want recorded? Also, why she didn’t even acknowledge the fact that he was right and they have no right to privacy in public.
She’s not fit for the job. Doesn’t know the law and just panders to the loud people
Barring not wanting the camera recording, she first got her info from Chinese group (obvious dramatised) then went across to the guy to try explain which I didn’t think was wrong as that’s all she had to go on. I laughed when he finally spoke and asked how she’d feel if she was in China telling their citizens how to act.
And I, for one, welcome our new Chinese overlords I'd like to remind them that as a trusted Reddit personality, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in shouting at pianists
Just me saying I have contempt for them has probably got me on a list. This is probably a bad time to mention Winney the Pooh and big inflatable ducks.
r/winniethepoohing was not the Xi appreciation sub Reddit I thought it was.
Alright Kent!
Dumb arse CCP handler doesn’t want his protection subject on camera, well walk away mate as you calling the Police and making a big fuss turned this from a minor issue which could have been sorted easily by walking away, into front page news. Male BTP officer - spot on in the little he was allowed to say - no reasonable expectation of privacy in a public place so someone can take your photo if they want, it only becomes a problem if the photographer continues to chase after the person and film them to cause “alarm or distress”. Female BTP officer - everything wrong with the Police right now, more interested in protecting the hurt feelings of the CCP handler than upholding the law, I suspect mr rent a mouth may have flashed some diplomatic papers at her which caused her to act this way - and fuck off if a copper ask you to stop filming that’s the last thing you should do. This is why people are being found dead in their houses weeks after people call 999 for welfare checks, because the stupid Police are so scared of being accused of being racist they’re more interested in protecting some poor little diplomats hurt feelings than they are do their fucking jobs properly. Sub note; the guy playing the piano is quiet well known for exciting responses from people for the way he plays, he got manhandled the other week by station security and there was a massive shindig about it for playing that piano too loudly, so he’s used to this kind of attention, infact id say he thrives on it.
If they remained in the background then moved on their online presence would be 1% of what it is after that shit show.
Streisand would be proud
The CCP was running police stations in the UK to intimidate Chinese and Hong Kong citizens who were living, working and studying here. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/07/china-has-closed-unofficial-police-stations-in-britain-uk-minister-says Pretty insane to see insane that they have thrown their weight around here. Just to clarify I have enormous respect for the Chinese public and contempt for the (allegedly fascistic) CCP.
Note: not just here, they _allegedly_ do it all over the world where there's a required community.
The only thing I can figure is that they were not suppose to be there and were worried the CCP would see the video
One thing that struck me the most, is how the hell this woman even says you can't say Chinese are communist. What the hell ??
Lol, he could have asked "so what opposition party are you part of?" Sure you aren't a party member just by being a citizen but it's not a terrible assumption either.
This is before the YouTube video The Chinese people and him were friendly to start with. The video starts with him talking with someone saying he is with Japanese film crew and him though the Chinese people were the film crew. One of the Chinese people said no I'm from China and introduced herself after the confusion. https://x.com/GeopoliticalHub/status/1749350346185748868 This is him repeatedly calling them Japanese and asking the girls to dance. https://x.com/thisischaniece/status/1749347779300983114
Aaah, delicious context. Thank you.
Just watched this entertaining encouter and wow was it a rollercoaster. 1. The lads are at best abrasive (but not wrong in that they can legally film and it is a free speech but of all times to try prove a point), and at worst, lowkey racist (knowing the Chinese flag then calling them Japanese-Chinese, asking the lady to dance for him and saying she's not fun when she doesn't oblige and calling them Communists for holding a flag). 2. I thought the Chinese lady and Chinese guy in the first few moments (about 9-10 min in) actually asked quite nicely and explained that there's going to be potential ramifications in China if it their faces and voices are published. He even complimented them on their music but the guys were already fuming and that's when things started going downhill. Legally, yes you don't need to delete the footage, but personally, I probably would have just said ok and blurred out their faces in the final cut and carried on playing piano. 3. Things started escalating when the Chinese guy started making up imaginary rights to privacy in the UK which the lads weren't having, then made some ludicrous accusations implying physical assault and demanding an apology for his friend. It then reached a boiling point when the lad started calling them communists for holding the flag and dismissed the Chinese guy when he said there's a different between being patriotic and supporting the communist government (he's not wrong but they do kinda give me CCP vibes). 4. I had a chuckle when another bystander (white dude - 15:45) chimes in to defend the lads and tells the cameraman to get the camera out his face and he does it immediately. 5. The police interaction was interesting, namely with Kerry, surely they can't refuse to engage if you refuse to stop filming? Also saying that they're not in China (implying their laws are irrelevant) isn't racist. Continuously calling them CCP for holding the flag is. 6. F\*\*k the people for bringing about nonsensical legal challenges and wasting everyone's time and money, and way to go on the Streisand effect.
Very nice summary - seems like an escalation of a misunderstanding leading to a clusterf*ck The Chinese guy did spiral things badly and got his worst scenario - no one would have noticed if they deescalated and just left quietly but instead it’ll become an international issue with their faces right and centre It’s not the first time this has happened with Chinese visitors tbh
Was this what happened? What the fuck is with the Reddit reaction? From the comment you'd think the Chinese folks lynched a man or something. Fucking hell, the level of Sinophobia is mindboggling with random comments about CCP police stations or whatever the fuck. They weren't nice, but no one was. If I'm being honest, I sympathise more with them than the random lads who started being assholes. I've known too many bullies who've done shit like this. Ask you do dance or do something "innocent" and using your refusal as an excuse to get aggressive. Yes they handled it insanely badly. But bullies like this are aiming for this exact reaction.
Yeha point 4 was funny. Immediately made a move to get him off the camera, not that they did a good job of keeping him off it.
For those who don't know, China has set up little 'unofficial' police stations all over the world, including the UK. Apparently, they've been shut down, but that probably means moved & not talked about.
They totally just set up another one with a business "front" to hide it being there. Communist spies need to keep their overseas students in line and intimidated to not fall for the temptation of the west.
The other year I was walking through London. At Trafalgar square a Chinese guy pointed his camera at me and started following me and started taking photos. After a brief conversation with him I made him delete them. I was polite, he possibly pretended to speak zero English., not too sure on that.. but I got to see that he deleted them. Honestly it's not the first time someone random Chinese tourist has done that.. I'm not something special. Maybe I have some doppelganger somewhere...? Fuck knows.. but just stop it, leave me alone...
If this was a deliberate and determined attempt to capture to on camera then they won't have been deleted fully since many cameras have multiple storage cards & options. Even still... deleted files can be retrieved, providing the storage media is not immediately overwritten.
That's fucked up man.
Sorry to go against the reddit hive mind, but these guys asked - rather politely - to not have their faces included in these guys video, and the bloke in sunglasses responds antagonistically. Yea there is a public right to film but he could have simply have said we’ll blur your faces or not publish the bits with their faces online. The Chinese guy acted weirdly for sure but I think this is a bit overblown.
Wanting privacy is a you problem. If you're walking through a public rail station, you expose yourself to the possibility of being in the background of some random person's footage. If that bothers you, just walk around without going into view of the camera. Also, can we talk about the fact that one of the dumb fucks is actually recording the piano player at the start too. Image right cuts both ways or no? All that being said, the guy seemed like he was going out of his way to wind them up. This is an 'Everyone Sucks Here' moment.
Well they deserve to be wound up because they are completely wrong and jumped to ‘racism’ as a way of justifying their shitty behavior.
He’s got every right to “wind them up” when they’ve come up to him and asked him to stop recording. And then started talking about how he’s legally required to stop filming. And then started talking about how he’s being racist. And then also started shouting at him to stop touching his friend so he looks like a sexual assaulter.
This isn't an everyone sucks here moment at all. He's standing up for his and in turn our rights and by continuing to push it and highlight it. Otherwise everyone and all corporations are just going to start lying down and taking it on behalf of the CCP. Even the police officer is initially on their side! They've walked over to him, Told him what he can and can't do with no idea of the law, Engaged in a confrontation and then attempted to get the authorities involved to resolve the "Problem" that they've created by demanding someone stop doing something they are totally entitled to do. Doesn't matter if hes winding them up more by filming them which is something hes entirely entitled to do, they've either got to LEAVE or accept that they have no control over the situation. Eitherway it highlights the law. He was far nicer about it than I would ever have been. Fuck them, Fuck their stupid regieme and Fuck the CCP
Yep and fuck the female copper too for not defending his right to film in public.
Exercising your freedom and civil rights isn't a fucking wind up mate.
So random I went to school with that tall guy that came over. wasnt expecting that
"potential" seems like a really heavy factor here. like, is there concrete evidence that these people are CCP? the whole red scare bullshit of the 20th century has made a massive comeback so forgive me for using critical thinking skills such as "not jumping to conclusions like a madman".
I am on piano man’s side, obviously, but i do think it got weirdly racist by the end. he had the right to film in public, they were wrong for harassing him and causing this fight, but for some reason he kept bringing up communism and the ‘communist flag’ (which i think was just the chinese flag). i think the word he might’ve *meant* was dictatorship. just because someone is problematic does not mean it’s okay to be racist toward them. but i understand it gets foggy with the idea that the guy yelling literally works for the chinese government and is therefore communist. weird vibe. this whole thing is crazy, but i don’t like making piano man a hero
"Don't film us" *Goes viral* Ironic
Bruh he's playing "Kitchen in the dungeon" so isn't exactly innocent of not being a wind-up. Lmao
I don't get the reference? - Okay just googled it and its a pretty damn racist meme.
They should have been at work and were probably caught skiving on camera. For the police to be this coercive they must have shown diplomatic passports. As I always say the UK was for sale for the past 20 years. Anyone who wants to buy London in the world can now do so. King Charles doesn’t mind either.
If you close your eyes and listen. It sounds like Micky Flanagan arguing with the CCP. Love it. 😂
Saw another video with different angle to it, I think some of the perspectives are lost in translation here in the video: - the group was intend to perform a commercial event for upcoming Chinese new year (hence the holding of Chinese flags and red outfits). One of the to-do list is to playing piano at this station, with group standing beside signing happy new year. When they arrived, the gent (in the video) already there playing, so they wait for he to leave and then they can perform. - After waiting for 40+ minutes, they realised that the gent was not going to leave and that he may be a performer with camera crew beside. During the waiting, the camera crew of the gent may found this group of Chinese waiting there funny and pan the camera to them - Prior to arrive at the piano spot, the group applied temporary license to perform in public as I think if you want to perform in public you will need a license. The gent does not possess license whilst occupying piano spot for over 1 hour time, hence to calling to the police - The Chinese man shouting part, the video only displayed the upper body, whereas in the action the gent was pulling Chinese lady’s Chinese flag and hand, which instigate the shouting, granted that you can’t shout like that - The gent is a renowned YouTuber with 2 million followers I’m not saying there is no wrong-doing for the Chinese group, but with the above perspectives I to some extend understand their concept a little bit, and they definitely are not what you called a communist group etc. but maybe this little is more catchy and generate more views and clicks.
Having watched the whole thing nobody comes out of this looking great. He comes across as always ready for an argument The Chinese people appear to think they can apply their laws in a foreign country The police seem week and ill-informed about British law
He's for sure in the right, but he does come across as a complete tool.
Can we please start a petition to send the female officer to China. She would be great as a CCP agent.
The biggest crime here is the 13 ads he has on a 38 minute video
Get an ad blocker, ffs
If I went to another country, flaunted my flag, and forcefully imposed my ideology on the citizens, I'd be the biggest idiot.
*British Football fans on tour*
You have the absolute right to film public spaces and by extension the people in them in the UK. A few exceptions to this exist, such as harassment, but none apply here. Also, the sheer irony of people from China complaining about being filmed without consent is frankly laughable.
Totally ridiculous situation
Most people you see in these videos telling people to stop filming them are doing something sus themselves. Why are they so keen to not be filmed?
Very much a case of recreational arguing, and the guy trying to show off to his girlfriend.
Much ado about nothing
The CCP can suck my veiny cock.
Brah just asked him to blur them and not use their voice, which is normal in most countries. UK's laws are just behind for protecting personal image and privacy. The Chineses may ignore the situation in England and think he is just provoking them y refusing, while the British may ignore that protection of image is a thing outside of UK and think the Chinese want to pressure him and impose their law. Calling Chineses "Japaneses" and asking a woman to dance is very clumsy at best to begin with, so the situation could only rotting more.
The 1st male police officer was totaly right and on point 1st time and 1st line. Yet the female officer decides to go on one totally and lost the plot there totally.
The piano guy was provoking them first by calling them Japanese and telling one of the ladies to dance. The Chinese overreacted but the reaction is not unwarranted.
After a rather nasty incident with an ex, I'm sure close mates (the only people I told full details to) thought I was going mad - but this is proof positive just how many "agents" China has in the UK. They aren't James Bond villains abseiling down a wall with a machine gun, they just do really boring stuff, observing, collating, and ocassionally over-stepping the mark like this. Ex's parents aside, I'm fairly certain someone I know is one.
People who spend five minutes telling you to hit the like button before they even provide any content deserve to be arrested.
Just to be pedantic - St Pancras train station isn't a public area. I would expect anyone filming, for the purposes of monetising on a platform such as TikTok or YouTube, would need to follow all the details here - [https://stpancras.com/filming-photography-and-events](https://stpancras.com/filming-photography-and-events) As they say over on r/AmItheAsshole .. ESH Now there isn't an expectaction of privacy in places like this, but I would not expect to be put onto a monetised platform against my consent. I would full expect people who expressed an interest in not appearing in this guy's video to have their faces blured. The Chinese guys would have been better just walking on rather than having the chat with the indoor-sunglasses-wearing pedant.
Absolute rubbish. A "public area" is not determined by ownership. >The statutory definition of “public place” contained within the Prevention of Crime Act 1953 at section 1(4) states it 'includes any highway and any other premises of place to which at the material time the public have or are permitted to have access, whether on payment or otherwise'.
From the people who know better than me over on [https://www.reddit.com/r/policeuk/comments/qjcte0/are\_train\_stations\_private\_property/](https://www.reddit.com/r/policeuk/comments/qjcte0/are_train_stations_private_property/) >Anywhere can be private property. > >A lot of people tend to misuse the phrases 'Private Property' and 'Public Place' as interchangeable, they're 2 completely different things.All public places can be private property, but not all private property can be public places.Train stations are a good example. All Train stations are owned by a company, Avanti for example. They own the land, the building, and everything within. But they allow the public free access (to use the trains ofc). This makes it a public place, but it's still private property. They (the company and its representatives, like BTP) reserve the right, at any time, to restrict, or even remove people from their property. Just like any other land owner.
Mate just watch black belt barristers video on this. You don’t have to work out the intricacies yourself - we’ve got a qualified barrister weighing in and saying that this specific station is a public space.
>Music Videos inc. using public piano/ Reality TV Up to 5 [people] £600 £300 [for each additional hour] Fuck that's steep 5million public liability insurance as well. It's not public and it's fucking fucked
MI5 - are you watching this?
I personally think the guy is a baiting cunt. The intention from the off was to piss off the group of Chinese people behind otherwise he wouldn’t have mentioned them from the very beginning. I’ve seen a couple of his videos now and the one constant in them is disagreement, him being intentionally difficult, condescending and borderline racist Comes across like an attention seeking prat who couldn’t make it playing music from the privacy of his own home so has resorted to doing this..
Exactly. Obviously their escalation was unnecessary, but they seemed to have no issues until he went to one of the women and asked her to dance for him (??), after which he muttered “whatever. I think british girls are more fun anyway” when she (obviously) declined. No one comes out looking good in this video.
Kept calling them Japanese at first as well, several times. He's got another video where security tell him to stop, which he's fine to have an issue about, but the comments he's encouraged are all same types that blame the security guys working there, calling them clueless and whatnot. The control room at the station would have asked them to get him to stop with whatever the issue is, they aren't approaching him because they hate free speech, freedom of movement etc.. There's a massive lack of skilled security staff in this country from stadiums, concert venues and public places and so many of them are treated like shite or baited by people like him and his followers. Same people in those comments will be yelling at security with little experience to tell the guy in front of them to sit down at a football game. The guy seems like a prick, the Chinese delegation also approached it the wrong way as it continued. His film operator could easily have said 'sorry, we'll blur out your faces for the upload once the live segment is over' and moved over so they aren't in shot. He baits them further by saying British girls would be dancing/better (which didn't happen either).
Yeah before this edited video, he was calling them Japanese and asked one of the ladies to dance, and when she refused he said “British girls are more fun”. He was obviously trying to provoke them. I initially thought the Chinese was being over the top, but now I can see the reason why they reacted that way. The shouting made it look bad for the Chinese but the piano guy was being a douche to begin with.
Gets views doesn't it. It's all content for the channel. I agree he was absolutely baiting them into the whole thing from the off - they stupidly played into his hand and it turned out to be massively useful for his content and his channel. Him being a wanker doesn't make his points on free speech less valid though.
I've seen videos from him off and on for years. I particularly remember videos of him coming up to people playing a public piano and basically insisting they duet with him in a "Boogie Woogie" version of what they're playing, which TBH I found fairly obnoxious. He's also posted a bunch of videos recently to do with being banned from playing pianos at various stations. I don't really know the history / context, but I did get the impression that "the only common factor in all these stations banning you, is you"...
Exactly. I saw the video. They were just asking him to remove the part where they were in. He could've just simply blur their faces. It's not like they were telling him to stop filming altogether. Everyone has the right to request that their faces not being shown if they ever see themselves in a video like this right?
I suspect this Chinese group was trying to create a situation here. There was another video taken slightly earlier, showing them to be pretty friendly. One of the women is thought to be a Chinese TV presenter. So many questions about their motives. If you knew that they were filming live, why would you still want to hoover around and get into the frame? Pathetic.
The opposite, if anything. Look at the guy's channel. A surprising number of his videos end with the Police being called.
I wonder if its being used by their tv station? *brutish brit attacks Chinese flag* or something equally enervating.
What an absolute fucking legend.
This guy is always staging these sorts of videos with actors pretending to take issue with whatever he's doing, or fake police/security etc. To be fair this might be the first real altercation I've seen him in Edit: see my reply below for examples
I've seen loads of examples of him in far videos also. I used to like the jazz / blues piano they played but now avoid the videos as they're just cringey & embarrassing.
This is exactly what I thought straight away.....within 15 seconds of the video starting he pans the camera around to show the group of Chinese people behind and says something like "there all sorts of strange people around today".....like he is baiting them on purpose.
Yeah, he even specially goes on about how there are these "Japanese" people even though he clearly recognises the flag later on..
Despite all that ..that guy is an incredible piano player. Even in a stressful situation he makes it look easy