UK NEWS

WHY IT IS OK TO OGLE A MAN

Private parts – such as breasts – must be exposed to class as voyeurism

Friday May 16,2008

By Elisa Roche

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A MAN has been cleared of ogling a male swimmer’s chest in a public pool changing room – because it is only a sexual offence to stare at a woman’s breasts.

Kevin Ronald Bassett was convicted of voyeurism following a visit in April 2005 to Grange Paddocks baths in Bishops Stortford, Herts.

He received an 18-month supervision order in May last year.

But he challenged the jury’s verdict on the grounds that the incident was not covered by the Sexual Offences Act 2003, under which he was charged.

The Act specifies that private parts – such as breasts – must be exposed during the alleged act of voyeurism.

But the alleged object of Mr Bassett’s attention was a man – and his lawyers argued that the Act only relates to female breasts.

Lord Justice Hughes, sitting in the Appeal Court with Mr Justice Treacy and Sir Paul Cresswell, said the trial judge had given the jury detailed directions on the question.

However, he had failed to fully examine the issue of the meaning of breasts.

His legal directions to the jury were flawed, said Lord Justice Hughes, and ruled that Mr Bassett’s voyeurism conviction must be quashed.

“The intention of Parliament was to mean female breasts and not an exposed male chest,” Lord Justice Hughes said.

“The former are still private, amongst 21st century bathers, the second is not.”

He added: “This Act didn’t mean to refer to the male chest but only to female breasts.

“It follows that the judge’s directions on the meaning of breasts was erroneous.”

Mr Bassett, 44, of Spalding, Lincolnshire, was prosecuted after an incident in the pool changing rooms in which he was alleged to have taken a hidden video camera in there to film a man as he showered in his trunks.

The key question in the appeal was whether, since the man was bare-chested, it was a case in which “breasts” were exposed within the statutory definition of the 2003 Act.

Lord Justice Hughes ruled that it was not.

WHAT IF?

16.05.08, 6:35pm

What if the man had had a sex change?
Who would be the victim of the offence then?
The man wearing them or the woman that donated them in the frist place?
That could make the case very tricky because she might have died and so the defendent would be living breast from a dead woman.

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