I was surprised to discover via an email sent to me last week that it is still illegal under Scottish Law for a boy under 10 to see a naked shop mannequin.
I failed to find the specific law that this offence might be related to but I am presuming – if this is indeed the case – it has to have come from Victorian laws related to the “corruption of youth”.
I was left with other questions. Who was to be held liable should such a boy come into contact with a naked mannequin – the boy’s parents, or the shop owner? And why did this law just apply to boys and not to girls?
If my email correspondent was accurate, it got me thinking more generally about Scottish attitudes towards actual nudity, as opposed to the nudity of shop mannequins, especially as the temperatures have just started to rise, the likely long-term impact of global warming on the Scottish climate and therefore the reality that people might be tempted to work on their tan now, and especially in the future.
Is it legal for a Scottish man or woman to simply strip off and start to sunbathe?
Scots law surrounding public nudity would seem to be guided either by the common law offence of “outraging public decency” and the more serious criminal offence of indecent exposure – more popularly known as “flashing”.
However, if our intentions are simply to sunbathe and we take off some or, more likely, all of our clothes, would that outrage public decency?
Context here would seem to be all and if there are people present – even if they might not actually see you stripped – but who could theoretically take offence to your state of undress, that would be enough for you to have caused an outrage to public decency.
The presumption therefore is that you cannot sunbathe in the nude. The Sexual Offences Act 2003 is even more specific and states clearly it is an offence for a man or a woman to intentionally expose their genitals. So be warned. Just as well, I thought, that there are no nudist beaches in Scotland, given our historic, deplorable weather. How wrong could I be?
The Naked Scotland website lists 10 beaches (both “official” and “unofficial”) where people can sunbathe nude, with the furthest north being the beach at Kearvig at Cape Wrath. Seemingly it is very popular with foreign tourists.
This was all well and good but I was still no further forward with my quest to uncover the law related to a boy seeing a naked shop mannequin. I thought that I could track things down via case law but again came up with a blank – but found even more bizarre Scots laws – the Licensing Act 1872 makes it an offence to be drunk while in charge of a cow; the Salmon Fisheries (Scotland) Act of 1862 makes it illegal to fish for a salmon on a Sunday, or to be found “handling a salmon in suspicious circumstances”; and it is a legal obligation for a householder to allow a stranger who knocks on their door to use their toilet. I liked this obligation but wondered if this was actually a tradition, rather than a law.
By this stage I was well and truly down a “strange laws” rabbit hole and so – by the Seamen’s and Soldiers’ False Characters Act of 1906 it is illegal to wear fancy dress that might suggest that you are a member of the Armed Forces – and someone was prosecuted by this very Act as recently as 2009; ringing someone’s doorbell and running away is against the law by the Metropolitan Police Act of 1854; and asking a stranger for money to put in a parking meter could be considered illegal under the provisions of the Vagrancy Act of 1824.
The use of the Seamen’s and Soldiers’ False Characters Act in 2009 suggested that these old laws don’t just stay on the statute book through neglect but might also remain in force because in the right circumstances they can be useful.
To make that point, let me ask you a question. When was the last woman in Britain tried and sentenced under the Witchcraft Act of 1735?
The answer? In 1944, when the Scottish-born medium Helen Duncan was tried for revealing that HMS Barham had sunk – a fact the Admiralty had wanted to keep secret. She was sentenced to nine months’ imprisonment, although she would continue to conduct séances on her release from jail right up until the time of her death in Edinburgh in 1956.
However, I admit, I ended in failure. If you can help with the actual legal reference to the naked mannequin and boys under the age of 10 do drop me an email.
