‘I calmly told police I was a journalist, but they said they didn’t believe me’

I had turned to walk the few hundred yards or so back to my home when four gloved hands grabbed me from either side.

It was almost 2am on Wednesday morning and I had been with protesters as they were chased down Deanery Road and St George’s Road towards the Jacob’s Wells Road roundabout.

Despite being there to report on the day’s events, when police horses charge in your direction the only option is to run away.

When the officers grabbed me, I immediately told them that I was a member of the media. Despite being a journalist for 20 years, however, I have never had a press card.

When I repeatedly told officers – who were still flanking me on either side and tightly gripping my arms – that I was a journalist, they said that they did not believe me. And why should they? But even if I did have identification, at this point I had not been able to show any so the police simply accused me of lying.

I calmly told them who I was. That I work for Bristol24/7. That I was doing my job as a reporter. That when they grabbed me from behind, I had been walking home.

Six riot police surround Bristol24/7 Editor Martin Booth as they detain him on Anchor Road – photo: Simon Chapman

Freelance photographer Simon Chapman was standing next to me on Anchor Road when I was grabbed. He was carrying his professional camera equipment. I had been recording everything on my iPhone. Budgets are tight at Bristol24/7.

At that precise moment, I could not conclusively prove that I was a journalist. My phone had run out of battery so I was unable to show police a letter from media regulator Impress confirming my keyworker status.

One of the officers then said that they had seen me chanting. I politely told him that he must be mistaken but he insisted that I had been.

He then told me that I had been seen running with protesters. This was true. I did not want to hang about when riot police charged on foot, with dogs and with horses.

As my footage from last night and from Sunday’s riot shows, I was often close to protesters and rioters. These were extremely volatile situations and I saw it as my duty as a journalist to document as much of what I saw as possible.

Hotwells and the Harbourside is my own neighbourhood. Last year, I organised an Easter egg hunt for my two young daughters on the Jacob’s Wells Road roundabout when there were barely any cars.

I watched riot police tussle with protesters on the same bit of road that I used to walk my eldest daughter to school when she went to St George Primary School at the foot of Brandon Hill.

Independent journalism has never been more important and vital than it is right now.

“You didn’t need to be there,” one of the police officers told me as I continued to tell them that I was a journalist. He suggested that I could have watched proceedings from much further away. But what good would that have been at night?

“If your pictures aren’t good enough, you aren’t close enough,” said the photojournalist Robert Capa.

Simon also lives by that maxim. He too was with the peaceful protesters on Deanery Road as police charged.

The same officer seen later with Martin assists in the arrest of a protester on Deanery Road – photo: Simon Chapman

Another protester is arrested in the early hours of Wednesday morning – photo: Simon Chapman

I’ve never had a press card. In 20 years of being a journalist, I have only ever been asked for it once: at a meet-and-greet with Peter Andre at Asda in Bedminster. I could not show it to security and despite my protestations that I was there to report on proceedings, I was asked to leave.

With my lack of professional equipment and identification, I can understand why the police might have thought that I was a protester.

But the accusations that I was chanting and part of the mob were both well wide of the mark. I had clearly been identified, targeted and grabbed. I wonder what might have happened if Simon had not been there, taking photos of me and confirming my identity to officers when I asked him to tell them who I was.

Earlier that day, two reporters from the Bristol Cable had also been targeted by officers. They, however, did have their press cards. But were still jostled and, in the same way that I was, officers said that they did not believe that they were journalists.

“I was with my colleague Adam Cantwell-Corn covering the protest last night for the Bristol Cable when a riot police officer physically confronted us and threatened us with the use of force and arrest,” Alon Aviram told me.

“We had our press cards visibly on show and immediately stated we were journalists. We reminded him that the National Police Chief’s Council recognise press cards as official accreditation.

“He proceeded to push us back and tell us we weren’t journalists, and said force may be used against us.

“‘It doesn’t matter if you claim to be a journalist, because you’re studying journalism, disperse,’ he said. A commanding officer soon arrived on the scene, took charge of the situation and allowed us to continue with our work.”

I appreciate that the police have a very difficult job to do, especially during a pandemic. While walking through Millennium Square on Monday, I made a point of going to the mounted police transporter parked in its usual spot in the corner, thanking an officer for their work policing the riots the previous day.

The next day, I was being chased by mounted police down Deanery Road. They had a job to do, as did I that evening and into the early morning.

After about five minutes of me being wrongly told by the police that I had been chanting and that I was being viewed as a protester, they let me go.

I walked the few hundred yards to my front door, thankful that I had been allowed by police to go home after being detained for doing my job as a journalist.

Main photo: Simon Chapman

Read more: Riot police break up peaceful protest on College Green