Televised searches
Dominic Littlewood, a presenter on Fake Britain I'm taking a break from my usual diet of drink driving law to talk about search warrants and the presence of TV cameras when they are executed. Last night I watched Fake Britain, a TV show on the BBC that follows trading standards officers as they investigate various fake products – all sorts of things seem to be caught up in this definition from “fake” houses (where the house is supposed to have a Passivhaus rating but doesn’t) to substandard fairy lights, knock-off DVDs and fake designer jewellery. On this episode the film crew attended a family home looking for a woman who they suspected was selling fake Pandora jewellery. The trading standards officer had a warrant to search and was accompanied by police officers. Nobody was home but a window had been left open so the police officers entered through the window then unlocked the front door allowing the trading standards officers and, it seemed the camera ...