Anti-terrorism police - words fail me

Sometimes I think that the news is made up, this story just couldn't be true, could it?

"Running around the streets in combat gear, waving around glittery hairdryers and claiming to be 'dork hunters', they couldn't fail to attract attention.

But children's TV presenters Anna Williamson and Jamie Rickers never dreamt that their outlandish outfits would warrant suspicion by police who stopped them under the Terrorism Act.

In addition, their so-called 'weapons' consisted of hairbrushes and hairdryers.

Yesterday the hosts of the hit ITV show Toonattik told how they were issued with a warning under Section 44 of the act when they were filming a promotional clip for an animated comedy series for young children.

Clad in fatigues, sunglasses and flak jackets, they might have resembled the assassin characters from the hit Hollywood film Mr & Mrs Smith played by Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.

But that didn't deter four Metropolitan Police officers on London's South Bank who noted suspicious items including the hairdryers used to advertise GMTV show, 'Dork Hunters from Outer Space', which is popular with four to nine-year-olds.

Miss Williamson, 28, said: 'We were filming a strand called Dork Hunters, which is to do with one of the animations we have on the show.

'We were out and about doing 'dork hunting' ourselves on the streets of London. Jamie and I were kitted out in fake utility belts, we had the whole bulletproof flakjacket thing.

'We've got hairdryers in our belt, a kids' £1.99 walkie-talkie, hairbrushes and all that kind of stuff.

'We were being followed by a camera crew and a boom mike and we get literally pulled over by four policemen and we were issued with a warning "under the act of terrorism".'

His co-presenter Mr Rickers, 32, added: '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".'"

Words fail me.