An award-winning architectural photographer whose innocent photos of a church yesterday sparked a security alert in central London is to lodge a formal complaint against police.
Grant Smith said his complaint will focus on why police carried out an anti-terrorism stop and search even though he had already told them that he was photographing buildings.
The complaint – which he plans to send to City of London Police – will also question why police officers acted on what he claims was an ‘incorrect testimony’ given by security guards at Merryl Lynch bank.
Smith denied that he had been taking pictures of security staff near the Bank of America building on Cheapside, near St Paul’s Cathedral.
He said that a member of security staff pictured in one of the images ‘was incidental’ and that he was taking pictures as part of a personal project to photograph ‘the remaining steeple’ of Christ Church, Newgate, built by Sir Christopher Wren.
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