Снова про В.Бетелла
Vincent's Victory
NUDITY NO BIG DEAL - OFFICIAL
It was June 1998 when a naked Vincent Bethell first surprised gawking tourists and police walking in Piccadilly Circus, London and later frolicking with friends on Parliament Green. The mainstream press called him the 'naked nutter' but the October 1998 H&E gave him two pages and circumspectly described him as "eccentric but principled."
For the next eighteen months we saw nude demos across the land and appearances before magistrates prosecuting him and his band of nude philosophers - now known as The Freedom To Be Yourself group. Simple philosophy: 'Human skin is not a sin so why the genital taboos? Why are we conditioned to despise the genitals - the source of life? Ergo: clothing the body is anti-life, we should have the choice to be free of clothes, being human is not a crime.' I paraphrase but you get the drift.
During 2000 came the big ones - organised displays outside Buckingham Palace, the Royal Courts of Justice, and New Scotland Yard. These bands of naked men and women on the streets of the capital attracted onlookers and supporters. Numerous smaller nude walkabouts in various towns and cities across the country had provincial TV newscasts using him as their 'and finally item' while the documentary makers probed the simple message behind the naked medium.
Inevitably, the police and magistrates tired. Although charged and released, repeated breaking of bail conditions led finally to Vincent's arrest and imprisonment in Brixton in August 2000. After five months of segregation in a prison officially recognised as 'the worst in the country' came a long awaited trial at Southwark Crown Court. A report of the trial follows on the next few pages.
Until recently most naturists never took to Vincent and the methods of his group. It was reciprocal. For Vincent naturists are 'closeted' players mucking around with a leisure concept with sexual undertones they always deny. Naturist critics retorted that Vincent and his friends were 'me generation' exhibitionists merely 'cocking their bits' at society for no justifiable reason and giving 'genuine naturists' a bad name.
Others saw the debate over being nude in public as a legal problem receiving a thorough examination with Vincent as a positive force for the good, the nude activist the British 'naturist movement' had not seen since the heyday of the aptly named Capt. Vincent, who used similar methods in challenging 1930's attitudes towards the naked body and morality.
Vincent Bethell's acquittal sets no legal precedent for there is, as yet, no specific law against nudity in the UK. But naked people, wherever they are, will appear before the law in the future. The Bethell case will be widely quoted. That he was declared not to be a 'public nuisance' by repeatedly being naked in the centre of London, and elsewhere, will go a long way in convincing a future magistrate or jury that a spot of nude sunbathing in a park or on a beach could not possibly warrant conviction.
Mark Nisbet - Editor
The Trial of Vincent Bethell Southwark Crown Court, London. Court report by Bob Janes
Knockabout courtroom drama doesn't come much better than this. On the bench, His Honour Judge George Bathurst-Norman, robe, wig, spectacles, flashes of testy humour; a man who had always observed the proprieties in life, and expected the same from others, a fair man doing his level best to secure what he saw as a rightful conviction. For the Crown, an exquisite, rejoicing in the name of Orlando Gibbons, the sort of man who feels at home with kid gloves and silver-topped cane, wig perched on immaculate afro, presenting his case with a ponderous delivery and posh accent. Not a man who had clawed his way, tooth and nail, to the bar, to fight for the oppressed minorities. Think Kid Creole, but more money, lower IQ. Defending, Isabella Forshall, tenacious but tortuous, with a scattergun technique that never quite hit the target. She gave the impression of having left half her notes on the Aga when she stopped to feed the cat. These were not the most incisive legal minds the profession has to offer.
In the dock that staple ingredient of British humour, the naked man, and at the witness stand another. Amongst the wigs and gowns, and the stilted legal formalities, Vincent Bethell, the accused, and Russell Higgs, the witness, lent a simple human dignity to the proceedings. However, all good humour is spiced with pathos, so now we come to the seriously unfunny bit: Vincent and Russell, both innocent men remember, have been in solitary confinement in Brixton for five months and one month respectively. Vincent, calm and cooperative, was arrested with an unlawful degree of violence in August, and has been in the not too tender care of the prison service while the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) have twice had the case adjourned as they desperately struggled to drum up a charge. It was worth the wait though: a piece of common law nonsense entitled 'causing a public nuisance', Franz Kafka meets Monty Python.
If you persist in burning old car tyres at the end of your garden you are being a nuisance to your neighbour. This is a private nuisance, and your neighbour has a remedy in civil law, to seek an injunction from a court to stop you doing it. If you are a company burning old tyres on a commercial basis and thereby pollute a large area and discomfort a lot of people you are creating a public nuisance which, as well as having a civil remedy, is a crime and can be prosecuted as such. This would be the more usual case in which to use causing a public nuisance as the charge. The last time it was used against a nudist was in 1875, and the reason it is used in this case is because mere nakedness in public is not a crime, and in the absence of deliberately offensive or sexual behaviour Vincent cannot be charged under any of that plethora of offences which as naturists we know and love. These normally succeed because the accused go quietly, but the CPS knows that quietly is not the way Vincent goes, hence that nasty scraping sound from the barrel bottom.
If you want to know what an Act of Parliament says you can go to your local library, take down Halsbury's Laws and read it for yourself, but if you want to know what the Common Law is you must poke around in a variety of case law, precedent, ratio decidendi, obiter dictum, persuasive authorities, and so on. His Honour has done the legwork for us and stated in court his version of the criteria that need to be met in the case of causing a public nuisance. Namely, there must be an unlawful act which endangers the health, life, comfort, or morals of the public; or obstructs the public in the enjoyment of their lawful rights. The act must be committed in a public place, and affect a reasonably large and indiscriminate section of the public.
The defendant must know, or should have known, that his conduct would have this effect, and the behaviour must have occurred on a number of occasions. All fairly straightforward except, perhaps, 'indiscriminate section of the public', which means a cross-section of the general public going about their business who have no choice but to be confronted with the conduct. It would not include a crowd who had chosen to go into, say, a theatre or exhibition, or had deliberately attended one of Vincent's protests, or gone to a nudist beach.
The trial at Southwark Crown Court extended over five days. The judge heard a number of submissions from defence counsel in the absence of the jury. One of these was an attempt to use sections of the European Convention on Human Rights, which has recently been incorporated into English Law, and is seen by lawyers as a gift from the gods who guard over legal fees. Now these things are not enacted by some wholly independent, supranational body with nothing but good on its mind; they are cobbled together by nation states with governments much like ours, with their own agendas, and politicians and civil servants who want to keep their little bit of power over our lives. So not surprisingly they abound with weasel words, and cop-outs, and enshrine the rights of national governments to make domestic laws to ensure good order and safeguard morals, and see that whatever rights we do have don't interfere too much with the general scheme of things, all for the public good of course. The judge ruled firstly that it was a matter for him, and not the jury, to decide whether the English law in question was compatible with the new human rights legislation, he found there was no conflict. The question to be put to the jury was to decide the case on the evidence before it in respect of the domestic law alone.
Vincent's right of freedom of expression, and his right of freedom of conscience and religion would not therefore, according to this judge, be compromised if an English law required him to wear clothes. Naturally, as freedoms of conscience and expression were being discussed, Vincent's campaign and his beliefs about human nakedness were very much to the fore. The judge then ruled that the defendant's motivation was immaterial. What mattered was whether he committed the crime, not why, and that he would not allow evidence of Vincent's moral convictions to be put forward as a defence. Having said that, he later allowed a truly amazing degree of latitude in the court, in front of the jury, with both Vincent and Russell Higgs more or less campaigning from the witness stand.
The jury had been selected earlier and represented a fair cross-section of the London public, mainly aged thirty to forty, one older, one younger, two women, two black. They listened attentively, occasionally smiling, but were obviously intent on trying the issue seriously. Once the legal submissions were out of the way the prosecution presented its case, which consisted of nothing more than a succession of police officers testifying that Vincent was naked and they arrested him. Mention was made of people complaining; a woman with a pushchair, a man who thought others might be offended, but none of the shocked and horrified public gave evidence, and the prosecution agreed that it had no names and addresses of any such people. One officer stated that he personally was affronted because he was, "a family man and wouldn't want his wife or children to see it." He then read from several typed pages that Vincent had handed him when he was arrested and cautioned. This was the Freedom to be Yourself campaign manifesto, he read it fairly without sarcasm in a clear and steady voice that gradually became impassioned with the cause. The jury were plainly impressed with the logic of the argument it promoted. I believe that at this point their sympathies began to swing towards Vincent. Bit of an own goal there, Orlando, old bean.
So that was it, even on this shaky evidence the section of the public affected on the six occasions that formed the basis of the charge amounted to no more than three or four people. At this point defence counsel, in the absence of the jury, submitted that there was no case to answer because the wrong law had been used. The judge ruled that if the conduct could be prosecuted under a variety of laws it was entirely up to the CPS which they proceeded with. I would have argued that the Crown had produced insufficient evidence to sustain a case. There was no evidence that the behaviour was unlawful, or caused an obstruction, or endangered anyone's health, life, morals, or comfort; a few people just didn't like it, that was all.
After lunch Vincent took the witness stand still naked. It had been put to the judge that to make him cover up would be to prejudge the issue of his nudity and prejudice the jury against him. A powerful argument said the judge, and advised the women members of the jury that they could cover their eyes if they so wished. Jonathon Irwin writing in the Daily Mail would have you believe that the women went red-faced with embarrassment. Not easy for the black one Jon, surely? But Jon wasn't in court, the patronising, misogynistic, tosser just made it up; believe me the jury were no more fazed by the nudity than you or I would be.
Vincent continued the good work that the prosecution had unwittingly begun, and for two hours propounded his view that being naked was not a crime, it was just a human body, the jury all had one, it was part and parcel of being human, an inescapable fact that you had skin and a body shape. Two weeks after he was arrested outside Marks & Spencer, he said, they began an advertising campaign with a naked woman and the slogan, "I'm normal." Well I'm normal said Vincent, just a normal human being. The jury looked at him and believed. Cross-examined about the complaints, he said he had never heard adverse comments, only good-natured remarks, laughter, and shouts of support. All the defence witnesses testified to the same on this point. "Well" said Vincent, "Seeing a naked man on Euston station brightens up a dull morning." The jury grinned, Orlando was not amused.
Juliette Sebastian then gave evidence of having joined some of Vincent's protests, of being arrested, held unlawfully overnight, and released without charge. Forthright and friendly, she helped to establish that this wasn't just about blokes with their willies out.
Next up was Russell Higgs, naked from the cells below the dock, through the court, and into the witness stand. We were all so used to nudity now, that it wasn't even remarked upon, no clearing the court, no invitation to the ladies to cover their eyes, no warning, nothing. Hell, it was becoming normal. Russell continued the campaign, almost none of his evidence was factual, concerning the case in hand, it was pure rhetoric, and he was a good performer. "So you just walk around naked and if people don't like it that's tough," ventured Orlando. Russell replied that he was a caring person and would attempt to enter a dialogue with anyone who might find his behaviour alarming, and pressed on the point he said that whatever you did, there always was someone who wouldn't like it. "And you don't warn them you're coming do you," said Orlando, "you just think it's tough." "Look," said Russell, "there are people out there who don't like you because of the way you look, because you're black, do you warn them you're coming, or do you just get on with your life and think if they don't like it, and I didn't want to use your expression but I will, if they don't like it then, yes, that's tough."
H&E editor Mark Nisbet was now called. In pictures of the protest at New Scotland Yard, Mark, with his young son on his shoulders, had been seen as just the type of person likely to be offended. Yeah right. Mark is a capable performer and I was looking forward to his confrontation with Orlando Gibbons, but the Crown prosecutor had been quite badly mauled by Russell Higgs and was losing heart. Mark outlined the jolly nature of the protest, and the general reaction of the public to such affairs.
Orlando then made his closing remarks to the jury. At various times he had said that nakedness in public was illegal, and he repeated this now. Isabella, for the defence, spoke to the jury, nakedness in public wasn't illegal she said, for if it were Vincent would have been charged as such, instead of this silly convoluted nonsense. Judge George did his summing up, a brief resume of the evidence, and then he went through the criteria necessary to satisfy the charge. "It requires an act unwarranted or unauthorised by law, that's the nakedness." Sorry your Honour I didn't quite catch that, you sort of mumbled that last bit. Are you directing the jury to the effect that public nudity is indeed illegal, or are you just hoping they'll go away with that impression because without it your crummy bit of common law falls apart. Unfortunately, that question was not resolved. The jury retired and returned for Judge George's guidance on two points; a definition of comfort was required: there wasn't a legal definition, use your imagination. On how many occasions did the criteria need to be met to satisfy the requirement of persistent behaviour, asked the jury. This was easier, two would do, said the judge. Twice tells me someone's getting desperate. At two-thirty the judge says he will tell the jury he will accept a majority verdict, but, surprise, we have a verdict already. They're looking quite pleased with themselves, all agreed, yes, not guilty. You wanted a legal definition of comfort? The judge's face, that's discomfort. Vincent stands and voices his battle cry, 'Being human is not a crime'. His Honour bawls back down the court, 'We'll get you next time you bastard'. OK, he actually said, 'Don't go away too much with that idea, it is simply not an offence on this occasion' but my version better captures the spirit of the thing.
The verdict doesn't establish any useful points of law, the jury found the defendant not guilty on the facts of the case, and the public nakedness being illegal chestnut is still around, but it's an enormous step forward in many respects. This issue has been covered in every newspaper, mainly in a sober and positive manner, and a lot of people must have considered their position on nudity as a result. Naturists are now getting a free ride on Vincent's coat-tails. The man says he's not a naturist, but he's out there pushing back the boundaries for all of us. If Vincent can walk bollock-naked through Southwark Crown Court and Euston station don't tell me you're having problems on your scrappy little bit of discreetly tucked away naturist beach. So, well done that jury, and congratulations Vincent mate.
You may not like him, I don't want to do what he does, but Vincent has got the balls, and is the biggest thing to hit naturism since 1934 when his namesake, the nudist campaigner Captain Vincent, shoved a WPC into the Serpentine.
Text and Pictures copyright H&E Magazine 2001. For permission to reprint this article contact H&E the editor at: he@btconnect.com