Be Excellent To Each Other

Feeling surprisingly calm that a locked gate has appeared on our right of way to and from our house. No code provided to us. Luckily we have another way out.

Legal types, how can I "date" photos I have taken on my iThing in a manner acceptable by a court? Because I think documenting how this develops may be wise just in case.

Changing the metadata in a picture file is trivial, so I doubt there is a way that's accepted in court.
I'm sure they'll be happy enough with the pictures as they are.

Or take it a photo, get it printed tomorrow, then mail it to yourself and leave it unopened.

Bonus marks for getting a copy of today's newspaper in the foreground or something.

Yeah I was thinking that. From a legal standpoint, the fact the gate is locked is enough. Just trying to cover all bases though.

I saw this coming weeks ago and thought I'd go all ('Linda' - Ed) when it happened, but having read up on it all I'm happy for it to run it's course. Either they see sense or I do it the hard way.

Email it to myself and print it out with headers?

Is the back story any good?

Might be an idea to get in touch with whatever the English version of Scotways is. They deal with public access & the like, but can probably give you some good advice.

Not much story really. An existing estate which we had right of way over has been asset stripped and sold off in bits. New owner of part of the track we can use doesn't seem to have much understanding of his obligations. He seems nice enough but his standard response is "I own it". Well yeah mate you do, but you can't stop me using or make it impossibly difficult no matter what your reasons.

Put it this way the previous owner, a real sharp practice businessman asked if he could gate it and all the houses said no. He didn't try it on any further because he knew he'd just end up with a lot of expense, hassle and would lose.

Which is why I am fairly relaxed about it at the moment. We'll ask nicely. If he continues to deny access we'll get an injunction easily. If he locks it but provides a key it's a grey area. But we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Don't want to fall out with them. They seem nice enough but their default position is "we own it" and I don't think they understand that access to the track isn't some kind of benevolent act on their behalf.

There are a few "Time Stamping Authorities" kicking about who will timestamp and verify a document for a few pence each ( although for small volumes it's probably more ). I don't think you can do it in a 100% verifiable manner without a trusted 3rd party.

I think it's now a case of keeping a diary with the photos as our neighbour also came up against a locked gate late last night. He'd elderly with a bad knee so that has made me more cross than anything. His house has had the right of way since 1912!

If owner doesn't come to his senses sharpish it's going to get messy. He might get away with pushing people around if it was just one house, but it's four. Would you potentially want to be dealing with 4 sets of solicitors and 4 eventual injunctions?

Staple a copy of that day's Daily Mail to the offending gate before taking the photo.

FTFY

a locked gate you say...

Of course the answer was staring me in the face, literally.....

The dash of the Audi has the full date + time on it in nice bright orange. So todays photo has a nice clear timestamp on it.

Surely you can set that to whatever you like?

You could but it would be an arse to set it every time.

That'll stand up in court!

I stood up in your Mums court.