AIBU to be furious that this isn’t illegal?

[YetAnotherHastyNameChange]

During Covid myself and another few mums in my area have been visiting and delivering food parcels to elderly people whose families have been unable to visit. During this time I’ve made some really good friends with some of the old ladies and now the dc are back at school I’ve been still visiting a couple of them to help out and have a catch up and chat with them.

One particular lady is really lovely, absolutely hilarious but quite frail and her house really is a tip. Her family who live a distance away pay for a cleaner to go in weekly but as the lady is always there she never lets the cleaner actually do much other than the bathroom and all the books and stuff she’s hoarded for years is still piled up everywhere. A couple of weeks ago her family collected her and took her back to their house now restrictions have eased and booked the cleaner to go in as normal but hoping she could throw a few bits out - really not important things but there’s stacks of magazines from the 90’s, endless Tupperware that doesn’t match and the owner really won’t notice when she returns.

Anyway, cleaner goes in a discovers lots of things have been moved around so phones family to see if it’s them. It’s not them but they find out some internet blogger who visits ‘abandoned places’ has broken in somehow, dressed up in her clothes, sat on her bed, took loads of photos of all her possessions and posted it all online as a ‘time capsule house’. Family contact police who claim no laws have been broken as there’s no sign of a break in and he is claiming to have been invited in. Lady is now hugely embarrassed as everyone has seen what a mess she lives in and is refusing to come home again.

Having looked at this mans page he’s been going all round my local area and letting himself into people’s caravans, abandoned schools, loads of houses which he claims are abandoned but quite possibly just second homes that haven’t been visited for a while, taking photos in through people’s windows of houses that are clearly lived in, going into farms and photographing all the barns with animals, machinery that could be stolen, broke into a Victorian cinema that is currently being rebuilt by volunteers but is in a dodgy area so will now almost certainly just get trashed.

How is this not illegal? Why is he allowed to do this? So many people have complained on his page that he’s been in their barn/ photographing their dining room while they were out etc. and he just blocks them from the page.

He’s getting loads of views on these pages so more and more people are going to start doing this, surely? I find it outrageous behaviour and can’t believe the police won’t intervene.

[CervixHaver]

@ImJustNotSure

Sent him a message.

He probably doesn't give a fuck.

Your poor friend OP. Hoping he'll get his karma.

It's a shame as I don't mind wondering around the old very much abandoned former factory.

What is his page please?

[EHCP]

Birdman adventures @CervixHaver

Or it might be 'the adventures of birdman"

Very easy to find on FB.

[rainpurplerain]

Elefant1 this is so terrible I am so sorry your partner has been victimised.

How can this go on? Is the DailyMail onto it? So much for rights to a private life.

Shall we contact our MPs? Can I write to the MP of Devon if I do not live in Devon.

[Francescaisstressed]

Just a heads up but this thread is being shared on the abandoned places UK page - not sure who amde them aware - to highlight what he was doing is wrong and he's starting to be ostracised by his community, so hopefully hell now get some repercussions!

[Erkrie]

Good

[Sunnysideup999]

Trespassing is illegal though ?

[Cowbells]

Wow. I think I've seen some of his videos as I love looking at genuinely abandoned houses and I had no idea he was breaking in. How is this not covered by Breaking and Entering? At the very least, is it not trespass?

[Jacopo]

Good

[RainbowRaine]

Any proper urban explorer would never do this kind of shit

This ^

Proper urban explorers, respect the places they visit and they try to not touch or move things they find abandoned.

[PussGirl]

I've commented on the page.

Glad everyone hates him

[StickyProblem]

If he's drinking tea/water that counts as having taken something, I think, so it doesn't just count as being invited in.

[Sexnotgender]

@Francescaisstressed

Just a heads up but this thread is being shared on the abandoned places UK page - not sure who amde them aware - to highlight what he was doing is wrong and he's starting to be ostracised by his community, so hopefully hell now get some repercussions!

Good, hope the arrogant little prick gets his comeuppance.

[AbsolutelyPatsy]

it must be trespassing!

[AbsolutelyPatsy]

I follow some sort of facebook group like that

[AbsolutelyPatsy]

poor lady

[ChekhovsWorkshoppedShooter]

Trespassing on it’s own is not a criminal offence in England. It’s a civil wrong, and the owner can go to court to get an injunction or seek damages, but it’s not a crime so I’m theory nothing to do with the police unless they can think creatively about what criminal laws might have been broken.

[Nsws2015]

Hes put a post up just this morning about banning people from his page for negative comments!!! This thread has made me so sad, that poor lady!

[AbsolutelyPatsy]

someone has put this thread on the facebook page

[Xenia]

The photographs taken of the person's house could breach the UK data protection legislation as it is likely to be possible to work out who the owner is (given the land registry is public in the UK) when looking at the photos and so that could be a criminal breach of the UKGDR and Data Protection Act 2018.

1. The family should give him 48 hours to take every photograph and video down otherwise they will take civil legal action under data protection law. There is a huge new industry of mass data legal actions by the way at the moment.
   

2. The family should report it to the Information Commissioner's Office and ask them to require him to take down the material. The ICO might well want to act in relation to other houses entered in this way.

3. Drinking someone's tea without consent is obviously theft. If you take your own drink and sneak in and drink it there that is not theft of the owner's tea. Leaving the place with things in different positions has caused the family stress and also time of putting things back which he ought to pay for or else put right.

4. The family should contact facebook and all other social media where this appears via a solicitor if they choose requiring all details and photos to be taken down. Facebook receives these take down notices all the time and if they have a solid legal basis they will comply. Sometimes you need to contact them multiple times or write a signed for letter to a US office of Facebook but if the good grounds are there the material will be taken down in many cases.

2.

[Fenellapitstop]

He unfortunately is not committing burglary but could be looked at for 'found on enclosed premises' just looked at case law and that might work as he's putting up evidence of having been in there.

[Erkrie]

I don't think he knows what slander actually means. After all, he's posted the evidence himself of what he's done.

[ImJustNotSure]

@Nsws2015

Oh he’s really boiling my piss. He’s posted that ‘slandering’ status but turned off the comments. Coward. Also going on about positivity - I’ll tell you what’s positive an old lady being able to enjoy her last few years in peace.

[MiaChia]

Slimy little git. Wonder how his ‘career’ will progress? Hopefully, in a short, straight line to his nearest prison cell which he can then explore to his heart’s content 😠

[TheYearOfSmallThings]

x1,000,000

WTF!? I have never heard of such a thing!

[ChekhovsWorkshoppedShooter]

Fascinating point about GDPR Xenia, it’s amazing what you can achieve when an actual lawyer is putting her mind to it (I suspect there are some other actual lawyers upthread as well). That’s exactly the sort of thing I meant by thinking creatively.