More on KentOnline
More on KentOnline
A pensioner has spoken of the moment he had a gun pointed at him while filming outside a Ministry of Defence base.
Retired Allan Healey was videoing the entrance to the Defence Fire Training and Development Centre in Manston when a soldier aimed the weapon in his direction.
During the recording, the 71-year-old can be heard saying: “He’s pointing a gun at me. Oh, bad soldier.”
The guard, who had been circling the perimeter, can then be seen continuing his patrol of the facility.
Mr Healey, from Ramsgate, said: “I thought ‘Christ’. I didn’t know if there were any bullets in there.
“In that moment I thought ‘what’s he going to do next’.
“He wouldn’t need to use the scope to see me; I wasn’t so far away from him that he wouldn’t have been able to see who I was.”
Mr Healey had been hoping to capture footage of fire training prior to the incident on October 23.
He says he had previously been confronted by guards after he was seen filming outside the training centre the month before.
The soldier was a member of the Military Provost Guard Service, which provides security at Royal Navy, Army, RAF and other MOD bases.
An army spokesperson said: “Military Provost Guard Service personnel are permitted to use their scopes to identify potential threats.”
It was announced earlier this year that the centre is set to close after a 12-year contract, worth £525 million, was agreed in July to outsource the MOD's fire and rescue operations to company Capita Business Services.
The training will be transferred to a facility already owned by the firm in Moreton-in-Marsh in the Cotswolds.
