What would you have done?

[meriad]

What a horrid world it is sometimes.

Yup, sadly very much so

Kaz, I'm sure there would be CCTV, as you say it's more or less everywhere these days

[Workingman]

It is a difficult one. He fits the typical stereotype of a paedophile: fifty something chain smoker; not perfectly dressed; on his own in a public place taking photos with a cracking camera. Bang, got him!

But what if he isn't? What if he is just some ordinary bloke out taking interesting photos? I know, from having used an SLR camera, that it is impossible for someone to know what I am focussing on; all they can guess at is my general field of view. One millimetre deviation of my lens, undetectable from only a few feet away, could be hundreds of yards in my photo.

I am not defending the man. He was in a public place and has to take responsibility for his actions. But what if the police did turn up and took him away and it later turned out he had nothing but general scene photos? What if someone who recognised him came up with 2+2=5? What if he became targeted as a paedophile when he was nothing of the sort - remember the paediatrician.

We must be alert to dangers, and possibly be a bit suspicious of some people, but what we must not do is let our paranoia dictate our lives. We do not know this man from Adam, we would not recognise him if he spat in our face, yet we have all got him down as a paedo. That is no criticism of Shell's OP, she asked what we would have done. I would certainly have taken photos of him, whether he was aware or not. I would also challenged him, but in a way that was more of an interest in his camera and his photography, but he would "know" what I was really doing.