Monday 8th October 2007

On my way back home in the afternoon I called in at Havant, parking in Waitrose. I wanted to see if I could get some plastic, disposable spatulas from Wilkinson’s to put the repair filler in the frame of the porch and a copy of last Saturday’s copy of “The News”, the local paper, our copy not having arrived.

Having parked the car, I headed for “The News” Office in East Street, via Wilkinson’s and the rest of the Meridian Shopping Centre. I had just passed W.H. Smith’s and was by the shoe shops on the other side of that particular part of the Centre when a small group of young men passed me, though one stopped for an apparent conversation, though it was a strange one. He asked me about some things, apparently in current youth culture, I had not heard of, something about “Moo”, which turned out to be the initials M.O.O. and had something to do with videos, a loose connection with practical jokes and spoof videos. Some of the patter included him asking, “Have you got a word for me?”. Also, somewhere along the long the youth said he was involved in some video project and putting his work on DVDs.

Trying not to be rude, I said I had no idea what he was on about, and was about to leave it at that. However, while during his jabbering, I noted his appearance of a full head of fairly straight blond hair, braces on his teeth and a horizontally striped dark grey and light grey top, it was only at the last minute I realised he had glanced downward several times. When I looked down, rather than straight at him, I saw a video camera pointing at me.

As soon as I asked him about the camera and reached for it he ran off towards the north entrance to the Centre. I caught up with him outside where he dodged back and forth around a brick pillar before standing against the fence separating the path from the road. By then the camera was out of sight. Again he jabbered, largely incoherently.

Remembering his earlier question, “Have you got a word for me?” I said, “I have two words for you, not one; snivelling coward”.

There did not seem to be much point in pursuing the matter at the time. I turned and went to The News Office. After having bought a copy of the paper, walked back through the Meridian Centre towards the Market Parade area of Havant. As I crossed the road towards the Park I saw the student and his friends, on seats that, with the sculpture in the middle, was one of the new features in the area. Rightly or wrongly I decided to ask him if I could see what he had videoed of me. He simply pointed the camera at me again then, as I approached him ran away and dodged around the seats. His incoherent jabber on that occasion included something about homosexual, though I had no idea if he was referring to himself, or accusing me of thinking he was one. He was almost entirely incoherent and did not have the courage to stand still and explain himself. The students friends made the occasional mild attempt to put some sense into the situation but none that I was aware of to get heir colleague to “do the decent thing”, put matters right. In the end, I left and the group of youths headed across the Park towards Park Road.

I went back to Wilkinson’s, bought what I needed and went back to the car in Waitrose car park. On the way it occurred to me to drive to the Park Road side of Havant Town Centre in case I could find the group of youths and, perhaps, where they came from. When I reached Park Road, I saw several young people, on the paths on either side of the road, heading north, towards Havant College. It seemed a reasonable possibility that the youths came from the College and that it might be worth at least going to the college and asking about students on video projects, so I simply drove towards the College turning left out of Park Road, only to see the youths in question walking over a pedestrian crossing towards the College. Once in the College car park I happened to see the group near some of the main buildings with the amateur cameraman holding his camera and showing his work, his ill gotten gains, to his friends. I simply got out of my car, picking my video camera up as I did so, locked the car and walked towards the group taking as many still photos as I could between the camera’s recycling periods. The student concerned is the one with the  blond hair, in the middle of the group, showing his friends his video shots.

The brave amateur cameraman saw me, ducked behind his friends, trying to hide, then stood up again and ran away, with me continuing to try to take photographs of him. Eventually, he turned and confronted me, apparently asking what I was doing, as if it was not obvious. I told him I intended to make a formal complaint to the College about his secret videoing activities involving me. Only for him to say that he was going to make a complaint about me, though how that would work I had no idea.

Soon afterwards I was in the reception area of the College, eventually being able to talk to Karen Colley, a member of the Administration staff, who was very helpful, fully understood my reason for complaining and agreed that I had ample reason to do so.

I half laughed as I said I thought the incident was a form of video assault, like the “happy slapping” craze, videoing people with a mobile ‘phone camera, while assaulting them, though without the physical assault. Karen Colley commented along the lines that she was pleased I was able to see some humour in the incident.

Karen Colley said she would contact the College Principal’s Personal Assistant and ask her to speak to me, or ‘phone me, when it turned out the P.A. was involved with a meeting. I wrote my name and telephone number on the piece of paper offered, adding my business web site, www.rlkassociates.co.uk, as an afterthought.

When asked what I would like to happen, I said that I wished to be assured that the video recording of me would be wiped and never used anywhere and that, ideally, I would like to meet the student concerned again, in the Principal’s Office.

I was sufficiently annoyed by the incident, particularly the student’s cowardly attitude, that, when I arrived home, I downloaded the digital photographs and printed them out. Then I took the prints back to Havant College. Karen Colley asked if she could keep them, to which I readily agreed, adding that was why I had brought them. The student concerned is the one hiding in the second photograph, with the blond hair and running away in the third one and in the background in the final photograph.

Karen Colley also said she was about to ‘phone me as the Principal’s P.A. was still involved with the meeting she had mentioned earlier.

It was gratifying, though not surprising, that the attitude of the staff at the College was completely the opposite to the errant student. Having had connections with the college for years, when my son and daughter were students there and having attended the occasional course myself (short computer related courses and so on) I was well aware of its very good reputation. However, any group of fifteen hundred students, or thereabouts is bound to have a few oddballs in it.


Tuesday 9th October 2007

On the following morning, at about 9.30 a.m., I received a telephone call from Lesley Siddall, the Deputy Principal of Havant College.

She asked what I would like to be done about the video incident with the Havant College Student on the previous day.

I said that I had spoken to Karen Colley the previous day and my most pressing requirement was that I have a written assurance that the video recording of me had been wiped clean and that it would not be shown anywhere, either privately or publicly. Lesley Siddall said that the student concerned had been identified, that she would be seeing him during to morning to give him a piece of her mind and that a letter would be sent countersigned by her.

There was a question about what else I wanted to see done and I replied that I was not sure. I said that I had thought about passing over the details of the incident to Elise Brewerton. When Lesley Siddall asked dif that was my solicitor, I said that it was not; Elise Brewerton is a reporter on “The News”, the local newspaper, based in Havant, at least she was, as far as I remembered, as staff change from time to time.

In the end I said I would think about what else, if anything. There was no point in pushing matters to far but the student had behaved as an arrogant idiot without being able to show a shred of courage when asked to justify his actions, simply running away.

Lesley Siddall was not aware of what had taken place in terms of the weird conversation with the student.


Friday 12th October

On the Friday morning I received a letter from Lesley Siddall, along with a hand written letter of apology from the student, on a scrap of lined paper ripped out of a file, with an unreadable signature, as most are, and only his first name; apparently still afraid to own up to who he actually is.

If the student ever does find his way into the media business he will have to learn the rules a great deal better, have the courage to stand by and accept the consequences of his actions and generally “toughen up”, as well as grow up.