Spangly hairdryers and anti-terrorism
Published: 3 February 2010
Author: Rose Gamble
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Anna Williamson was one of the presenters stopped
ITV1 children’s TV presenters Anna Williamson and Jamie Rickers were recently arrested by police on London’s South Bank while filming a sketch for hit show, Toonattik.
The pair, acting out a scene from skit "Dork Hunters", were dressed in fake utility belts and armed with glitter-painted hairdryers and hairbrushes. Hardly the attire of your average trouble-maker and, with a camera man and boom mike in tow, it seems obvious what the presenters might have been doing. However, the pair were promptly stopped, questioned and issued with a warning under the anti-terrorism act.
Rickers, 32, told Sky News: "We were stopped, not arrested, but they had to say 'we are holding you under the Anti-Terrorism Act because you're running around in flak jackets and a utility belt', and I said 'and please put spangly blue hairdryer' and he was, like, 'all right'."
The presenters also hit the headlines for controversial behaviour in 2008. This time the item in question was a flesh coloured body-suit, giving the impression Rickers was not suitably dressed – or rather undressed – for children’s TV.
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