Last night I walked over to cartesiandaemon's place at around 9pm, for a small gathering of people.

On the way there I approached a group of five rowdy-looking lads heading the other way along the pavement, who were roaring ‘wooorrr’ at each other. As I passed them, they suddenly went quiet, and as I walked away I heard one of them mutter behind me ‘Thought that was a PCSO for a moment’.

I certainly wasn't deliberately imitating a PCSO, or any other kind of official person. I was just walking along the street, wearing black jeans and a black T-shirt. Though I suppose, in retrospect, I did have straps visible on my torso, a complicated device hanging off my belt, was walking with a long and confident stride and jingling faintly as I went, so some or all of those might have contributed to such an impression. (The straps were attached to a rucksack containing a jumper and a bottle of wine, the device on my belt is a digital watch, the jingle was keys and spare change, and the gait signified a desire to get there quickly rather than a sense of authority and power, but I suppose they weren't to know any of that.)

So on the one hand it amused me at the time that I singlehandedly put the wind up five rowdies by accident. On the other hand, I did actually just go and look up the wording of the law on the web, to make sure it wasn't possible to accidentally commit illegal police impersonation!

(I don't think so, though. As I read the Police Act 1996 section 90, you have to either be deliberately trying to deceive, or have something that's distinctively police uniform or a badge or document.)