Photo developing

[Larkin83]

I recently went out for a friends birthday and took a disposable camera with me. I now want to get the pictures developed but am a little worried as some of them blatantly show my mates doing illegal substances. Will the developers hand them to police or will they give me them back after development? It's just i've heard urban myths of people getting into a lot of bother in similar scenarios and i don't know what the score is? Cheers for your help.

[Joe_the_Lion]

There is no offence in taking illegal drugs. The crime lies in the actual possession. If the drugs have been used, then no problem.

If the photo company do inform the authorities, then the police will do nothing. There is not a magistrate in the country who would issue a MDA warrant on the say so of a holiday snap.

However, I would advise you to get new friends. Drugs are for no-life losers, often from insecure and desperate mindsets and fail to se the wider picture that drugs cause society.

[Oneeyedvic]

"There is not a magistrate in the country who would issue a MDA warrant on the say so of a holiday snap. " - apart from the one that let Kate Moss's apartment be searched.

According to this report: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/uk/5082546.stm the only reason that Kate Moss wasn't prosecuted was because they could not identify the drug in question (could have been three different drugs which fall into two different categories).

By the way the article is written, it may well be possible for a prosecution to happen.

However, I think if the developer elected to hand them over to police - the police could pick you / your mates up and search your property - looking for any drugs that they can find (especially if they knew you /your mates from previous run ins).

So long as they found no drugs and you stated that you didn't take anything / it was all a big joke then I don't believe that you could be prosecuted.

[Joe_the_Lion]

I am right.

That article makes no reference to a warrant being issued at all, and no search. In the unlikely event any form of search authority was obtained, I believe it would be for the recording studio anyway, not her apartment.

Further, for all prosecutions and to a similar degree the factors needed to obtain a search warrant depend on whether it will be in the public interest. Kate Moss, as stated in the last paragraph of the article) may have an impressionable image for youngsters.

Also, I believe she herself has previous convictions for drugs (I may be wrong), is certainly a mother and has a foul convicted druggie of a boyfriend, who,m if memory serves me right, is on probabtion.

I am afraid that article, albeit the BBC, is very vague and quite wrong. Without the actual drugs, whatever category, no prosecution will ensue. A photo will and never has sufficed as real evidence in any possession case.

So, I will strongly maintain, and out of my own interest will ask a magistrate friend of mine when I see her,

"There is not a magistrate in the country who would issue an MDA warrant on the say so of a holiday snap"

[Oneeyedvic]

Well if your mate says she wouldn't issue an MDA then obviously no other magistrate would either.

[Reverandfunk]

Mate to save you listening to war and peace on here, just go out and buy a copy of Razzle, have a look in the back and you will find ad's for companies that develop any type of photo's lol.