Here we go again - BTP PCOs with nothing better to do. Like they could move on the smokers who stand right next to the numerous 'No Smoking' signs and who block the main entrance to the Station. But no - that would be real work. Every day I see the BTP PCOs walk past the smokers on the 'wrong' side of the road and simply ignore them.

So how do the BTP now occupy their time? Well as just experienced at Paddington this evening the latest time-wasting seems to be to harass bona-fide passengers in The Lawn area.

I had just missed the train to Reading, and the next one was the 21.43 to Didcot (aka Oxford). I had 30 minutes or more to kill - enough to do 15 mins of emails using NR's / FGW's new wifi service.

So there I was sitting in The Lawn area busy doing emails when these two BTP PCOs walked in. One of them walked straight up to me and asked me what I was doing. I explained. Then he said that "no, I couldn't sit there doing computing," and he accused me of loitering with intent!! Erm - intent to do what? He then said that I had to leave and he accused me of not being a bona-fide intending passenger. I offered to show him my ticket and he said that he didn't want to see it. But he was quite adamant that I was going to have to leave, and his attitude was unnecessarily aggressive and unpleasant.

I deem this to be harassment of the first order. Its on a par to railway enthusiasts being stopped from taking photographs of trains in stations.

So be warned. The Lawn area is no longer for bona-fi passengers waiting to trains. The seating is not to be used by those passengers. The free wifi is not to be used. Simply - as I found - if you sit there you will be accused of loitering and will be asked to leave - EVEN IF YOU HAVE A VALID TICKET.

Indeed this evening I got the impression that anyone and everyone using The Lawn area would also be asked to leave. Unacceptable. Jobsworth is the term I believe. See:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fz44_Sp0K8A

CJB.

CJB wrote:

So there I was sitting in The Lawn area busy doing emails when these two
BTP PCOs walked in. One of them walked straight up to me and asked me
what I was doing. I explained.

Is the area officially closed in the evening, perhaps, but the doors had
been left open for staff access?

Neil
--
Neil Williams in Milton Keynes, UK. Put first name before the at to reply.

On Sunday, 18 August 2013 23:54:02 UTC+1, Neil Williams wrote:
CJB wrote:



So there I was sitting in The Lawn area busy doing emails when these two

BTP PCOs walked in. One of them walked straight up to me and asked me

what I was doing. I explained.



Is the area officially closed in the evening, perhaps, but the doors had

been left open for staff access?



Neil

--

Neil Williams in Milton Keynes, UK. Put first name before the at to reply.

The Lawn area was genuinely open as usual. The doors to The Lawn area are only shut and locked at midnight. Access is required to the various shops like M&S and Sainsburys. The former shuts at 23.00 and the latter at midnight.

CJB

On Monday, 19 August 2013 00:15:48 UTC+1, Paul Corfield wrote:
On 18 Aug 2013 22:54:02 GMT, Neil Williams

wrote:



CJB wrote:



So there I was sitting in The Lawn area busy doing emails when these two

BTP PCOs walked in. One of them walked straight up to me and asked me

what I was doing. I explained.



Is the area officially closed in the evening, perhaps, but the doors had

been left open for staff access?



At 2115 in the evening with 2-3 hours left of trains running with

relative low frequencies? How can you not be allowed to wait for a

train in a railway station?



Something's not right somewhere. I assume the OP was referring to

PCSOs rather than PCOs and if he was then colour me not surprised that

they're acting like a cross between Hitler and a Moron.

--

Paul C


I was the only one sitting down in the seated area - minding my own business.

I noticed that the same PCSO (whatever) also threw out a young lady - who was also waiting for a train. Its safer in there at night than out on the Concourse. She wasn't best pleased.

The guy had a newbie companion PCSO with him, and my guess is that he was showing off. But it has now resulted in a formal complaint to Mark Hopwood (FGW GM), the BTP Complaints dept., Network Rail, and letters to the railway press and posts to social media.

Basically it was bullying, harassment and victimisation. I would have thought that with all the bad press recently that the police - Met and BTP - would have been on a charm offensive right now. It seems that they have forgotten about the charm bit.

CJB

Could it be that the free wifi caused people to hang around the lawn area? If so, then someone may have complained that the lawn was full of freeloaders, malcontents and loiterers ****-arsing around on mobile devices instead of legitimately waitting for trains.
I'm not trying to excuse what happened, just thinking of reasons.

Paul Corfield wrote:

At 2115 in the evening with 2-3 hours left of trains running with
relative low frequencies? How can you not be allowed to wait for a
train in a railway station?

Not uncommon for parts of stations to be closed at night.

Neil
--
Neil Williams in Milton Keynes, UK. Put first name before the at to reply.

On Monday, 19 August 2013 03:59:52 UTC+1, Offramp wrote:
Could it be that the free wifi caused people to hang around the lawn area? If so, then someone may have complained that the lawn was full of freeloaders, malcontents and loiterers ****-arsing around on mobile devices instead of legitimately waitting for trains.

I'm not trying to excuse what happened, just thinking of reasons.

Well there is a bl**dy big notice advertising the free wifi!! So I would expect NR / FGW / BTP to find people using it.

And The Lawn has shops still open until midnight so there must be full access to the area. There is also a pub upstairs. And also a back entrance to the Hilton Hotel.

There are power points too for recharging mobile phones / laptops if you know where to look. Lots of tourists appear to use those - and no-one seems to care.

Of course there are the mandatory pigeons flying around and crapping everywhere including on the open food prep. areas of Yo! Sushi, to say nothing of the occasional mouse. On occasions they've brought in harrier hawks to chase the pigeons. In fact The Lawn is quite an area for wild-life - including out-of-control PCSOs harassing passengers.

CJB.

In message
.
net, at 08:12:31 on Mon, 19 Aug 2013, Neil Williams
remarked:

At 2115 in the evening with 2-3 hours left of trains running with
relative low frequencies? How can you not be allowed to wait for a
train in a railway station?

Not uncommon for parts of stations to be closed at night.

At Nottingham they used to roller-shutter off the booking office area
after about 9pm. Which was a bit of a disappointment when the only
TVM/ToD machines were behind the shutter.

It's all being re-done now of course, and later they did introduce some
TVM/ToD machines in the always-open part.
--
Roland Perry

"CJB" wrote in message
...
Here we go again - BTP PCOs with nothing better to do. Like they could move
on the smokers who stand right next to the numerous 'No Smoking' signs and
who block the main entrance to the Station. But no - that would be real
work. Every day I see the BTP PCOs walk past the smokers on the 'wrong' side
of the road and simply ignore them.

So how do the BTP now occupy their time? Well as just experienced at
Paddington this evening the latest time-wasting seems to be to harass
bona-fide passengers in The Lawn area.

I had just missed the train to Reading, and the next one was the 21.43 to
Didcot (aka Oxford). I had 30 minutes or more to kill - enough to do 15 mins
of emails using NR's / FGW's new wifi service.

So there I was sitting in The Lawn area busy doing emails when these two BTP
PCOs walked in. One of them walked straight up to me and asked me what I was
doing. I explained. Then he said that "no, I couldn't sit there doing
computing," and he accused me of loitering with intent!! Erm - intent to do
what? He then said that I had to leave and he accused me of not being a
bona-fide intending passenger. I offered to show him my ticket and he said
that he didn't want to see it. But he was quite adamant that I was going to
have to leave, and his attitude was unnecessarily aggressive and unpleasant.

I deem this to be harassment of the first order. Its on a par to railway
enthusiasts being stopped from taking photographs of trains in stations.

So be warned. The Lawn area is no longer for bona-fi passengers waiting to
trains. The seating is not to be used by those passengers. The free wifi is
not to be used. Simply - as I found - if you sit there you will be accused
of loitering and will be asked to leave - EVEN IF YOU HAVE A VALID TICKET.

Indeed this evening I got the impression that anyone and everyone using The
Lawn area would also be asked to leave. Unacceptable. Jobsworth is the term
I believe. See:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fz44_Sp0K8A

CJB.


================================================== ======================

I'm trying to remember the precise layout at Paddington. As you come off a
train you pass through the gateline into an area that has a few seats (but I
mean a few) and some retail "opportunities". There is the "smokers" exit
towards the left (and yes, I find their presence equally irritating) then
there's the stairs to the Underground and behind that there's the glass
screen. I thought all the seating behind the screen was provided by the
eateries in that area. If that's the case I'd expect their staff to
control the use but I suppose it's possible that they've had problems and
asked for BTP assistance. Still doesn't explain the attitude you report.

On 19/08/2013 00:15, Paul Corfield wrote:
On 18 Aug 2013 22:54:02 GMT, Neil Williams
wrote:

CJB wrote:

So there I was sitting in The Lawn area busy doing emails when these two
BTP PCOs walked in. One of them walked straight up to me and asked me
what I was doing. I explained.

Is the area officially closed in the evening, perhaps, but the doors had
been left open for staff access?

At 2115 in the evening with 2-3 hours left of trains running with
relative low frequencies? How can you not be allowed to wait for a
train in a railway station?

At Victoria they only let you onto the station just before very late
(=early) trains are due to depart (or at least they used to).


--
Arthur Figgis Surrey, UK