Outraging public decency

fingerz

fingerz

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I was watching one of those street crime type programmes last night, the ones where they splice together a load of CCTV footage mixed with camera crews following officers around. I don't know the name of the show but it was narrated by Jamie Theakston.

One of the crimes was to do with a young girl in a shopping centre. She was wearing a very short skirt and had bent over to pick something up. While she was doing this a guy took a photo on his mobile phone, presumably looking up her skirt (they didn't actually say) and she complained to security, who then called the police.

In the round-up at the end of the programme they said that the guy admitted taking the photo and was found guilty of outraging public decency. He was given a conditional discharge.

Now I don't condone that sort of behaviour, obviously, but what law has he actually broken? I realise he wasn't in a public place, what with shopping centres being private property, but taking photos on private property when asked not to do so counts as trespass. And he wasn't charged with trespass.

Given the nature of the charge I assume it would still have applied if he'd been in public. If the court considers him to have taken an indecent photo, and the photo he took was of the girl, then wasn't the girl commiting indecency too?

Paparazzi often go so far as to physically stick their lenses up the skirts of glamour models arriving at posh clubs/parties. How come they don't get charged with outraging public decency? The practice even has a name - upskirting.

As I said, I'm not condoning what the guy did, but I'm having trouble seeing where it's actually illegal. in the UK a photo is legal if you were standing* in a public place when you took it, the only exception I know of being the use of telephoto lenses to pry into private property, which still isn't technically illegal.

*By standing I assume the law covers crouching, sitting etc.
 
I think you're right on the money here - obviously the guy's a perv and should know better, but I don't think he's done anything illegal - so he's been charged, OK.
Was he convicted?
His brief should be able to make mincemeat of that case.

Subject in a public place (privately-owned but frequented by the public also counts, i.e. gardens, parks etc) and in plain sight. If anything she should be done under the morality laws for inciting indecent behaviour.
It's the one thing I like about Arab countries, women don't get hassled on the streets.
 
Probably the police took action because the 'subject' (quite rightly, in my opinion) wasn't happy about the circumstances and made a complaint.

Did you know that you can receive a hefty fine if you tell someone an English/Irish/Scotsman joke to somebody, and an Irishman overhears you and is offended. Its called a 'racially aggravated public order offence'. :ponders:

Need to be very careful with what you say and do these days.
 
Who cares what the Irish think? Or the Scots? Or anyone for that matter. Joke's a joke - there's always someone who'll be offended. Under the Law as it stands today, Monty Python's Life of Brian would be illegal to make. I think that's a sad state of affairs to be in.
 
Who cares what the Irish think? Or the Scots? Or anyone for that matter.
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You should!

Joke's a joke - there's always someone who'll be offended.
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Yep and they'll sue you for it (and win, probably)

Under the Law as it stands today, Monty Python's Life of Brian would be illegal to make. I think that's a sad state of affairs to be in.
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It wouldn't be illegal but it would be cut very close to the bone. You'll observe that they don't seem to show movies such as Blazing Saddles on TV any more.

Society has gone slightly mad.
 
They do show movies like that but they cut large chunks. I sit next to the compliance unit at work (Red Bee Media, formerly BBC Broadcast) and their job is to do just that. They watch new shows (or repeats) before they go to air and make sure they're fine for the audience. If not they'll make cuts. Quite often something that's fine one year might need to be cut the next due to world events (eg a programme that mentioned the twin towers in a joke or something like that).
 
GfK said:
Yep and they'll sue you for it (and win, probably)
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That's the sad thing, once you stop laughing at yourself you tend to disappear right up your own a$$.
 
Saw a program the other night celebrating sitcoms & how it has affected society. The old classic sketches of Alf Garnett racism come up which you shudder at these days. Great story though of years later Garnett having a yob say to him " great that you took the p*** out of the C**ns" , to which Garnett replies " No , I was taking the p*** out of people like you" :thumb:
 
There has to be more to this than meets the eye. Outraging Public Decency is an old Common Law Offence which tends to get used when they can't find any legislation to fit the circumstances. IIRC it's only triable on indictment ( Crown Court only). Whilst he's been treated fairly leniently by the court, I feel sure there must be some additional circumstances we're not hearing about, perhaps he said something to the girl of an indecent nature, or made an indecent gesture of some sort which together with his taking a photograph was enough to charge him.

A 'public place' for the purposes of most criminal law is 'Any premises or place to which at the material time the public have access whether on payment of money or otherwise' so the shopping centre would definitely qualify.

Trespass is just a common law infringement of the rights of the landowner and isn't an offence in itself unless accompanied for example by criminal damage or possession of firearms (poachers) in some cases. All those signs you see saying 'Trespassers will be prosecuted' are pretty meaningless and totally unenforceable. The situation is somewhat different in Scotland where there is an offence of Trespass.
 
GfK said:
You'll observe that they don't seem to show movies such as Blazing Saddles on TV any more.
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It's been shown on uk tv half a dozen times this year at least.

I think CT may be right, we are not hearing the whole story.
 
According to a guy who saw this programme, the girl was wearing a short skirt, had "Phenomenal legs" but wasn't revealing any medical bits.

It seems our photographer friend lay on the floor to get his up-the-skirt shot and then ran off, so I suppose he got what he deserved.

Funny though! :LOL:

Perhaps he'll turn up here asking for advice on processing the shot. :whistling
 
fingerz said:
So is lying on the floor a crime? I still don't really get what law he's broken.
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Come on mate - what if this had been your girl friend? If she was bending over and showing her assets in public then I'd say she was in play and I'd be the first to defend him, but lying on the floor to look up her clothes AND taking a picture....?
 
The girl was a little bit ditzy, for sure, but she wasn't so blind that she wouldn't notice a bloke lying between her legs. And I didn't see anything on the programme that even mentioned him lying down tbh so your mate must've been paying more attention than me. So if he was lying down somewhere a few feet away from her then what's the difference (legally) between that and lying down to get a shot of a squirrel in a park?

Morally it's different, yes, I understand that. But legally it really isn't. Unless you want to start introducing laws for squirrels.
 
fingerz said:
The girl was a little bit ditzy, for sure, but she wasn't so blind that she wouldn't notice a bloke lying between her legs
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She wasnt indeed, as stated in the original post

fingerz said:
One of the crimes was to do with a young girl in a shopping centre. She was wearing a very short skirt and had bent over to pick something up. While she was doing this a guy took a photo on his mobile phone, presumably looking up her skirt (they didn't actually say) and she complained to security, who then called the police.
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How old was this girl by the way ? it says young in your original post ? What exactly was his purpose for the picture ?

I believe we either have some current or ex police officers on here who can shed light onto the legality of what this :censored: was up to, but taking pics of people in public, or taking pics up girls skirts in public are 2 quite different things in my book.

And i am sorry, you CANNOT compare laying on the floor taking pics of squirrels to laying on the floor and taking a picture up a girls skirt, unless you are an animal rights protester ?
 
Well the bloke wasn't charged with any offences involving minors so I'm assuming she wasn't that young. It's not like the police to miss a charge where minors are involved.

He also wasn't charged with 'lying down in a shopping centre' or any sort of obstruction charge, so I'm assuming that's not illegal.

So all we're left with (in legal terms) is a man situated a few feet away from a girl, taking a picture of her. The law says you can do that for journalistic or artistic reasons. All he had to do is stand up in court and claim artistic reasons and I can't see much they would've been able to do about it.

As it is, he pleaded guilty and probably didn't know his rights. I'm not saying justice wasn't served, I'm saying what's to stop some perv from reading this thread and going "oh right... So all I have to do is claim it's artistic and I'll get off, interesting" and then doing it.

Either the law needs tightening or we have to accept some consequences of having freedoms like this (my preference being the latter). You can't have it both ways - the freedom to take pics but then turn round and complain when someone takes a shot you don't like.
 
There is a real difference though, morally, and I suppose as a result, wrt legal application, between taking a shot of a womans face, or sticking your lens up her skirt.

I would suppose it comes to boundaries of privacy.
 
fingerz said:
Well the bloke wasn't charged with any offences involving minors so I'm assuming she wasn't that young. It's not like the police to miss a charge where minors are involved.

He also wasn't charged with 'lying down in a shopping centre' or any sort of obstruction charge, so I'm assuming that's not illegal.

So all we're left with (in legal terms) is a man situated a few feet away from a girl, taking a picture of her. The law says you can do that for journalistic or artistic reasons. All he had to do is stand up in court and claim artistic reasons and I can't see much they would've been able to do about it.

As it is, he pleaded guilty and probably didn't know his rights. I'm not saying justice wasn't served, I'm saying what's to stop some perv from reading this thread and going "oh right... So all I have to do is claim it's artistic and I'll get off, interesting" and then doing it.

Either the law needs tightening or we have to accept some consequences of having freedoms like this (my preference being the latter). You can't have it both ways - the freedom to take pics but then turn round and complain when someone takes a shot you don't like.
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I think you need to look at the situation as a whole, and not take it apart piece by piece and over-analyse it.
 
I think you're making way to many assumptions Jamey including the 'some distance away bit' We don't have the full facts anyway, but just reading between the lines, the fact that he ran off after doing the deed implies he did actually take the pic from right underneath the girl. I don't see him running away if he was some distance away.

This is an old Common Law Offence which is a sort of 'catch all' offence used when there isn't a more substantive offence, for example, indecently assulting the girl. Women can be publically sexually harassed in numerous ways without any actual assault taking place and it's only right that they should be protected, so it's great that this law still stands. I don't see any real danger to my rights as a photographer from some yobbo with a mobile phone acting as this guy did either.

I'm not sure how we got onto squirrels.? :ponders:

No beaver jokes please. :D
 
damn. beaten to it.

Outraging public decency was originally scheduled for inclusion into the revision of the sexual offences act. After much debate it was withdrawn as the clause was barldy drawn up and potentially could've caused confusion. Instead it was added to the criminal justice act. It was created so people who conduct lewd, offensive or disgusting acts in public could be tried in a magistrates court rather than having to crown court, as the case was before.

I think photographing up someones skirt would come under the description of lewd and disgusting behaviour. I think the crime is in the intent. Hence why journo's seem to get away with it. They're not doing it for their own pervy porpoises!

If you look at the context of it, he was blatantly invading this girls privacy for his own gratification, and if he was doing this in a public place then the police and courts would've had a duty of care to ensure it didn't go any further, happened again etc.


That's my take on it anyway.
 
I'm sorry but the act of photographing someone, no matter what the situation, is not in itself 'lewd or offensive behaviour'.

He should have been charged with assault (you can be guilty of verbal and implied assault as well as the physical sort as you all know), as his act of photographing her in that manner constituted an assault on her person.

Check out the way the Japanese are dealing with this - loads of blokes photographing up womens' skirts on the Tokyo subways are now being prosecuted for assault instead of just ignored as in the bad old days. Same with reading explicict porn in public as a lot of Jap Pervs used to do (presumably for the reaction by offended women).

If you want to photograph up women's skirts, hire a model and do it properly - or failing that - ASK.
 
Sorry if I've come across as supporting the offender in this post, I don't.

There are two things that essentially bothered me:

1) I don't like the idea that someone can be convicted of any offence simply because "it looks like they might have been doing it for dodgy reasons." I like the idea that people get convicted when there is good, strong, factual evidence that they have broken a law. This seemed a bit wishy washy to me and I'd hate to ever find myself in court and know that the judge (or whoever) could convict me because they felt like it, rather than because there was proper evidence.

2) Paps get away with upskirting every night of the week outside London clubs. I just figured that if it was illegal, surely someone would've complained about it over the years. If it does come down to intent, as gandhi suggests, then would he have got away with it if he'd pleaded not guilty and claimed it was for artistic or journalistic reasons? Surely they would've had to let him go?
 
fingerz said:
1) I don't like the idea that someone can be convicted of any offence simply because "it looks like they might have been doing it for dodgy reasons." I like the idea that people get convicted when there is good, strong, factual evidence that they have broken a law. This seemed a bit wishy washy to me and I'd hate to ever find myself in court and know that the judge (or whoever) could convict me because they felt like it, rather than because there was proper evidence.
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But there was proper evidence, he was caught, complained about, arrested, prosecuted ! The only complaint i can see here, is that the charge may not cover the offence to the word of the law, but he was outraging public decency on this day, he wasnt just taking a picture of a young girl in a shopping centre, he was taking a picture up the girls skirt in a shopping centre, for whatever reason, it is wrong, and he got what he deserved.

Where do you draw the line ?

fingerz said:
2) Paps get away with upskirting every night of the week outside London clubs. I just figured that if it was illegal, surely someone would've complained about it over the years. If it does come down to intent, as gandhi suggests, then would he have got away with it if he'd pleaded not guilty and claimed it was for artistic or journalistic reasons? Surely they would've had to let him go?
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Cant comment on that one as have never witnessed it, but dare say they would get the same treatment if they had a complaint against them.

It has reached the point in Japan where they are making and selling phones with circuitry in them, that allow mobile phone cameras to be disabled by a transmitter installed in public places.
 
I can see what fingerz is getting at. Basically he's saying yes, the bloke got what he deserved, but what he sees as fishy is the law that was applied to bring this man to justice.

Basically it looks like they have operated outside the remit of the law, for want of a better phrase, and although in this case it is seemingly justified, what's to say that such a thought process can't be applied elsewhere? Not upskirt photos, but, say, photos of a nice semiiclad lady walking past (as they do in summer), etc etc....Where would you draw the line there?
 
Maybe if she had covered her backside properly none of this would have happened, "agent provocateur"
 
Stepping outside the narrow confines of photographing ladies and looking at the bigger picture... If it's getting to the point where you feel like you have to ask permission to avoid prosecution then we might as well not bother having laws that protect our freedom as photographers.
 
fingerz said:
Stepping outside the narrow confines of photographing ladies and looking at the bigger picture... If it's getting to the point where you feel like you have to ask permission to avoid prosecution then we might as well not bother having laws that protect our freedom as photographers.
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As i understand it we dont have laws that protect our right to take photographs, but we do have laws that restrict our right to take photographs under certain conditions !

Check the harassment and invasion of privacy section on UK photographers rights document !
 
I've got that document saved and carry printouts around in my bag now for when I get hassled.

Admittedly my phraseology was bad in my last post but you get the gist of what I was saying.

If the chap in the shopping mall had broken any of the laws detailed in the PDF you linked to* he would have been charged accordingly. Instead he was charged using a catch-all law which was used in the absence of any greater crime. That's what I don't like here, the idea that these laws are passed purely so that the police still have a way to charge people when they can't find anything else to slap them with.

*BTW I thought Sirimo wanted us to link to his webpage, rather than directly to the PDF?
 
fingerz said:
*BTW I thought Sirimo wanted us to link to his webpage, rather than directly to the PDF?
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Yeah im having a bad day ill change that !

I get what you mean totally, guess im just playing devils advocate, as morally what this guy did was wrong and he deserved all and more of what he got, i can just imagine a law covering this situation being really awkward to implement, as any slight error in wording would make it easy for people to get off, and make a mockery of the law anyway!
 
If the police's track record was a bit healthier, and my personal experiences with officers a bit more positive, I might have less of a problem with the way this chap was brought to justice. But when innocent people get six bullets unloaded into the back of their skull (extreme example but true nonetheless) for doing nothing at all, you kinda want there to be a more rigid system in place to ensure you can't be wrongly convicted/punished/shot for doing something that was entirely legal.
 
These catch all laws are there exactly to cover grey areas. It is the role of judicial system to then review the arrest in light of the 'reasonable man' to see if an actual crime has been commited.

The police enforce the law, the judiciary make the law. However, you can't expect the bobby on the beat to know all of the law (that's for snakes err sorry solicitors) so they have to use judgement in execution of their duties.

The trouble then arrives when you enter the grey area and from either side there is a different interpretation that can be applied.

I think that with a decent brief this chap could have got off as that's what they are there for, if its clear cut then you have no chance, when its unclear then thats where a decent lawyer can make the difference.

PS. No law that we have is black and white they are all to be interpreted in light of the 'reasonable man'.
 
I think that's the problem, these grey areas.

I don't think for one minute, the application of the law in this particular 'grey area' was wrong, I think it's more of an unease that such an application can be made, purely on judgement.

I know I won't be lying underneath women in shopping centres taking photos, but if I was taking a shot I thought innocent, yet someone thought it outrageous and complained, and I was prosecuted for it. I think that's where the problem lies.

Because as we are aware, the 'right thinking man's interpretation' is often somewhat detached from reality, as tends to be the case from up in judgey towers., hehe
 
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