Have you been the victim of the UK police's misuse of stop-and-search powers (many photographers have been stopped in their usual line of duty, reporting news, or even just shooting a wedding, despite reassurances that this will stop), and if so, what did you do about it?

Perhaps you didn't know you could do anything, but in an entertaining piece in The Guardian this week, comedian and activist Mark Thomas details how he managed to prove his own experience of stop-and-seach was unlawful.

Thomas was stopped in September 2007 outside an arms fair in the Docklands in London after he attempted to walk past the police with an "over-confident manner". No kidding.



He writes:

"Although protesters are often targeted for stop and search, often claiming these are unlawful, they seldom seem to put in official complaints. So with the help of solicitors at Fisher Meredith I brought a complaint against the police. Being Britain the first step in a complaint against an official body is for the very body you are complaining about to investigate itself. And lo the police did find themselves innocent."

But he wouldn't let it lie – despite the police officers who conducted the stop and search expressing "surprise and disapointment" that he complained having found Thomas "pleasant and conversational throughout the incident". I'm really not making this up.

So he took his compaint to the Independent Police Complaints Commission, and to his own surprise, it delivered a verdict that the stop and search was illegal, stating that "it would appear that the officers had misinterpreted their powers under Police And Criminal Evidence Act (PACE)".



Thomas concludes:

"It is in the cases where they get it wrong that attitudes towards police are sharpened and the rights we feel we have as citizens practically defined. So I am writing to the police requesting a formal admission of liability on the part of the commissioner and damages for assault and false imprisonment".

So the next time you're stopped by police (under the PACE act or counter-terrorism powers) and you think you've been unfairly targeted, make sure you follow up and make a complaint. The following investigation will take up valuable police time, but that might discourage officers from taking up too much of your valuable time in the future.

Mark Thomas is speaking at The Convention on Modern Liberty later this month, alongside Brian Eno, Shami Chakrabarti of Liberty and Chris Huhne MP – plus dozens of others at events in London, Belfast, Bristol, Cambridge, Cardiff, Glasgow and Manchester.

The Convention offers "a call to all concerned with attacks on our fundamental rights and freedoms under pressure from counter-terrorism, financial breakdown and the database state".