We have been in touch with a road safety campaigner banned from filming in Ealing (see his case here).

We accompanied the man – who tweets from the account @CitizenUddin – to Uxbridge Magistrates Court to appeal his Community Protection Notice.

When we arrived in the courtroom the police withdrew the CPN, rather than contest the appeal. This is very telling.

@CitizenUddin had asked the police to withdraw the CPN several times before, but they stood by it. But as soon as there was a prospect of a legal appeal, and the scrutiny of a court – even though @CitizenUddin was representing himself – they dropped the order.

There are over 6000 CPNs issued every year. According to Ministry of Justice figures, only around 100 are contested in a full appeal.

Police and council do not expect to have to defend their orders in court or prove a case. When they are asked to, they often decide it is not worth the bother.

In over a year, the police have never told @CitizenUddin what evidence they have against him. The court had an evidence bundle, but he had not seen this evidence.

For a year, @CitizenUddin had been subjected to severe restrictions, including banning him from posting images of anyone on social media without their written consent, and also banning him from contacting his elected councillor.

A final strange twist occurred in the courtroom. It turned out that the police had not actually intended to provide the evidence bundle to the court. The police barrister was clearly shocked when the magistrate mentioned it, and asked to see it. Then she turned to the police officer sitting behind her and said ‘it’s our bundle – how did they get it?’.

The magistrate, to her credit, ordered that the police hand the evidence bundle to @CitizenUddin. The magistrate also said that, had the CPN come before her in an appeal, she would have wanted to scrutinise the extremely broad conditions that it contained.

The hearing was followed by an hour-long farce where the police barrister went upstairs for a long conversation with her inspector, to discuss the request to hand over the bundle.

The police evidence was eventually – and reluctantly – handed over to @CitizenUddin. However, were it not for an apparent administrative error, he would probably never have seen this evidence.

It is shocking that a police authority is repeatedly issuing legal orders against a person, yet they refuse to reveal the basis on which they are issuing these orders, and refuse to defend their case in court. This is a power that operates in large part through official secrecy and immunity from legal scrutiny.

If all CPNs were scrutinised in a fair legal contest, it is likely that only a very small fraction would stand.

This means that thousands of members of the public have been subjected to wide-ranging restrictions without knowing the evidence against them, and without a right to defence. This is a travesty of justice that needs to be rectified urgently.