Getting arrested with the Stansted 15 was my unexpected start in journalism

Having started a week’s work experience at The Independent two years ago, a story landed on my lap. What followed changed my career forever

My career in journalism began with a bit of a bang. Or a whimper, depending on how you view it.

Having started a week’s work experience at The Independent back in March 2017, a story landed on my lap. An acquaintance had put me in touch with an activist who was looking for a journalist savvy with a video camera. I wasn’t told anything of what I would be filming – details were kept to a minimum to avoid any information leaking to the police – but just that it was likely to be national news. Eager to make an impression, I jumped at the chance.

Little was I to know that all I was to get for my troubles was 24 hours in a jail cell in Harlow police station – with no scoop to speak of.

The activists I followed that night were whom the media were later to dub the Stansted 15. They were a group of activists who had gone airside at Stansted airport on 29 March to attach themselves together under a mass deportation flight bound for west Africa. I followed them on to the tarmac that night, with my camera in hand and my adrenaline rocketing through the roof. They ended up successfully stopping the flight and as a consequence three of the deportees due to be on board were given time to process their asylum applications and given leave to remain. Their mission was slightly more successful than mine.

Managing to stuff the memory card from my camera down my trousers just before being grabbed by a police officer – and so avoiding it being taken as evidence when I was searched on my arrival at the station – I had hoped that I would be released within a matter of hours so I could send the footage of the action to the Independent newsdesk. I severely overestimated the capacity for a provincial Essex police station to process 17 arrestees (the 15 protesters, myself and one other photojournalist) in good time. After 24 hours of unbelievable boredom, punctuated by three different microwave meals – yet remarkably similar in their blandness – I was released.

By that time, the story was old and my footage was all but useless. But back in the office I had caused a bit of a stir. Enough so that I was given an extra week of work experience and later, after I had completed my journalism course, a job. I wasn’t able to break the story as I would have liked – but maybe it wasn’t such a disaster after all.

Yours,

Casper Hughes

Commissioning editor, Voices