Photographer held in London
A 53-year-old Greek amateur photographer will be tried in a London court on Monday on charges of «causing public harassment, alarm or distress» after photographing a young girl during a journey on the British capital’s Underground, provoking protests from the child’s mother. Pericles Antoniou, who has practiced photography as a hobby for 25 years, had been taking snaps of the Underground during a visit to London with his family last month. When a woman complained that he had photographed her daughter, Antoniou said he apologized and deleted all the pictures, including of the girl, on his camera. But a man claiming to be the girl’s father referred the matter to police at the next Tube station, leading to Antoniou’s arrest. «From that point on, everything was like a nightmare… they locked me up, did not allow me to communicate with anyone… took my shoes and kept my camera,» Antoniou wrote in a letter to the British Embassy in Athens. The 53-year-old, who claims to have been «humiliated» by the British police, has asked the embassy to intervene in order to stop «this outrageous case.»
