‘What perfectly legal thing did you do that aroused suspicion?’ – 23 shockers from completely innocent people

If you’re the type of person who has a flicker of panic every time you see a policeman, despite being a completely law abiding citizen, you’ll be very paranoid about doing anything that might be considered suspicious.

And it turns out you’re right to be. Over on the AskUK subreddit, user Slothjitzu asked ‘What perfectly legal thing did you do that aroused suspicion?’ and added this:

‘Something you didn’t really think too hard about, but in retrospect was clearly dodgy as hell from an outsiders perspective. The UK is full of busybodies and overzealous police, so there must be a few examples here.

‘Mine is that I waiting for my wife to finish her nail appointment in her car. Texting a friend and told him I was near his house, so he could come meet us if he wanted a lift to where we were all going. He said yes but I didn’t know the name of the street I was on, so I hopped out the car and took a photo of the street itself so he would know where I was and come meet us. He walks over, wife returns from appointment, we all drive off.

‘Next day I get the police knocking at my door and questioning me because someone reported strange men driving around in the car parked on my drive, taking photos inside people’s houses. I literally had to show him the messenger exchange to get him to fuck off.’

And there were lots of other people who had found themselves in a similar scenario.

1.

‘I took my 1 year old son to my mum’s place in his pram, and since they were going to drive him back I walked home with just an empty pram. I walk by an old lady and she gets all dovey-eyed and that, and peers in to talk about how cute the baby is. But I’ve only gone and strapped my massive coffee cup in his seat and put a packet of cigarettes next to it. The look of disgust and mild fear on her face. I’m sure she wanted to call the police.’
–conspiracyfetard89

2.

‘I was walking home in the dark late one night when I heard someone running up behind me. Being a lady, I just ran too in case it was a murderer. They eventually cornered me – because it turned out to be two people, and it was the police. They asked why I was running away from them, whilst I asked why they were running after me. Very weird and Mr Bean-esque situation.’
–sayleanenlarge

3.

‘Back in the 90s a mate of mine lamped a cop for something similar. She was wobbling home from a club night and wandered up an alley, someone grabbed her shoulder so she just span around swinging a punch, and then saw the tit-hat bouncing up the alley. She got nicked for it too but the charges got dismissed because the cop shouldn’t have been grabbing a woman alone in an alley, at least not without announcing himself first.’
–AWBaader

4.

‘Not a major thing but I used to have insomnia and also dressed like a scrote so I’d get stopped by the police and searched almost daily on my 4am walks. I didn’t mind. They were friendly and one officer would stop for a chat and give some coffee from his flask after searching me. They never found anything because there was never anything to be found. Once I got a dog, I was never stopped again.’
–Round_Caregiver2380

5.

‘Gave a friend of mine some Creatine in a zip lock bag to try out, I gave it him as we were leaving training, I passed it him through my car window. Blue lights, possession with intent to supply a class A drug, around 17 hours sat in a police cell, NFA once they had tested it. As you said, overzealous police.’
–funkmastersuga

6.

‘Housemate’s car had its rear windscreen smashed while he was out of the country, and when I broke the news to him he asked that I retrieve his sat-nav (this was a while back) from the glove compartment, which I had to do by climbing in through the broken windscreen.’
–ViridianKumquat

7.

‘My neighbour called the social services on me to report that I was sex trafficking my daughter, because she’d seen them leaving with lots of ‘strange men’.

‘I’d only lived in the house two months, and I don’t have a daughter I have a son with long hair, the strange men were my boyfriend, my son’s father and my father taking him out places. If my neighbour had bothered to speak to me when I said hello to introduce myself perhaps she’d have known I had a son and an involved family.’
–couldaspongedothis

8.

‘I was sat waiting in traffic, elbow up at the window with my head resting on my hand. Whilst contemplating my existence I heard a knock on my passenger door window. It was the police asking me to have a word. Apparently I was on my phone, but thankfully my phone was on charge at home. I could see where they were coming from but they did want to check my car thoroughly for the phone.’
–amboandy

9.

‘Wearing a second hand coat that was way too big for me as a skinny teenager and going into literally any shop. Constantly followed or told they were watching me. One time a security guard told me ‘If I catch you, I’m going to cuff you’ when I was literally just trying to decide if I wanted lemon meringue pie or chocolate.

‘It’s called FASHION people, LOOK IT UP.’
–StephaneCam

10.

‘I turned down the volume on a self service checkout machine. I had a throbbing headache and the loud beep was like a knife in my eye I noticed there was a volume option so I toggled it down. The lady supervising the checkouts ran over and practically pushed me out the way and turned it back up and demanded to know what I was doing. I’m not hacking the machine I’m using the button right there available to everybody.’
–will8981

11.

‘Asking a cashier to swap £2 coins for £1 coins (needed them for laundry) at 10pm at night in Tesco, security guard was HOVERING.’
–mm_2840

12.

‘I was once followed around Superdrug by a security guard who got in my face at one point. I was on my lunch break from work, dressed in my officewear, wearing my work lanyard, carrying a shopping basket. I’m not sure why I aroused so much suspicion.’
–Bulbasaurus__Rex