Since making this video I have clarified the land ownership of the pedestrianised area of Trinity Square.
That land is privately owned but of course it is open for public access and public right of way.
In terms of the current law in England; being in a ‘public place’ and being in an area ‘accessible to the public’ are two entirely different things. You can think of Trinity Square as being of a similar environment to Eldon Square (without a roof). If the land owner stipulates that filming is prohibited, then it is and they have the right to ask someone to stop filming.
Therefore the security guard is quite within his right to ask me to stop filming, entirely if needs be, but he didn’t and on this occasion I thought he dealt with me very politely and professionally.
In terms of lawful powers to prevent filming on private property, this is a topic some KZfaq auditors love to exploit, but fail to differentiate between what’s lawful and what’s enforceable. They will then bully the individual, causing humiliation and embarrassment.
For example, the security guard wouldn’t be allowed to put their hands on me and forcibly remove, or detain me, unless I was committing a criminal offence (which I wasn’t), in order to make a citizen’s arrest. I would have been committing an offence of trespass, this is a civil offence. Should the security guard have insisted I stop filming, or leave and I didn’t, they can (in theory) pursue a civil trespass prosecution, but only if they have one’s name and address. You can see how this situation can easily be exploited.
I know the law on filming in public very well, but in the moment he informed me that it was private land I didn’t want to be behave like a prat, as I wasn’t in a position to challenge him on the land ownership.
So, what I wasn’t going to do, was to attract unnecessary attention to myself and to place him in the potentially embarrassing position of attempting to deal with me, should I have adopted a dogmatic stance on this. I think this is unnecessarily provocative and ignorant.