Naked Rambler Stephen Gough has walked free from prison after six years locked up for refusing to wear clothes.
The 53-year-old said he was looking forward to seeing his children for the first time in years.
A naked Mr Gough was spoken to by police as he was freed from Perth Prison, but was allowed to go on his way in an apparent shift in policy from Tayside Police.
On his previous releases, officers re-arrested him within 60 seconds.
Former marine Mr Gough, from Eastleigh in Hampshire, first earned the nickname The Naked Rambler by walking unclothed from Land’s End to John O’Groats in 2003, after quitting his job as a lorry driver.
He has been in prison in Scotland since his second naked ramble in 2006 and has been previously been arrested in the street outside Perth Prison at the end of each sentence.
Mr Gough welcomed the new police response: “My opinion is that the police have thought ‘the guy’s not going to give up so let’s have a think about it’.
“Something has changed and it is good news for me.
“What they were doing before was pre-empting complaints and now they are not.”
Mr Gough said he now plans to head south and hoped to see his children…
- BBC News
And if you thought the Scottish police were hard-@sses, wait until you meet social services, mate!
Oh, and in case readers thought I was joking about the Olympics. Strathcylde Police in Glasgow have already been called up over the G4S debacle.
UPDATE 21/07/12: And in case you thought six years in the slot had encouraged Mr Gough to think again and change his ways, he’s just been arrested AGAIN in Fife this time!
15 Comments
Six years in a max security prison, mostly in solitary, just for refusing to wear clothes? The world is a mad, mad place.
What a wonderful man. Both Durer and Montaigne suggested that we do not know someone, and they do not know us until we have seen each other naked. Most health problems would disappear if people were forced to face the truth about their bodies. Because one’s body is n accurate reflection of the mind it encloses, a society in which no one reveals their true identity can never be democratic. Strip away the fripperies and follow Stephen Gough.
And die of hypothermia trying to ramble naked through Scotland in February. As I mentioned under my last naked rambler funny, he has been very lucky not to have been sectioned under the mental health act before now.
I expect he was in solitary for his own protection rather than an extra dimension to his punishment, kvd.
6 years in prison for not wearing clothes?
there are people who committed crimes of sexual assault, who get a lesser sentence.
You don’t sound very sympathetic, DEM.
six f**ken years!?!?
Was he beating people on the head with his penis or something???
I’m absolutely astounded that this should pass in any civilised country.
And what Ybgirp said.
I wonder why post hunter gatherer societies nearly all seem to have such strong taboos about nudity.
M@7 (1) They didn’t necessarily (think Classical Greece).
(2) In order to have a nudity taboo, you need to have clothes.
I resent this blatant attack upon the fashion industry. Lorenzo put it well – “you NEED to have clothes”.
My caps – which is short for ‘capitalism’
The six years was cumulative. What happened was that he was given 6-9 month stretches which ended up being served back-to-back because he persistently reoffended and was openly contemptuous of the court and the law.
Personally I think he should still be in there until he grows up and accepts that he’s subject to the law like anybody else. Not much sympathy, sorry.
People should be jailed for years on end due to peaceful protest? Wow.
what law! He was arrested for “breach of the peace” because even with scotlands harsher- out-dated and anti-human right views on public nudity, they couldn’t use their Public indecency law to arrest him. So they used “breach of the peace” which is the same as a cop saying “i’m arresting you because I don’t like you”
Widespread condemnation of nudity seems to be a product of the spread of the three omnipresent monotheistic religions. An argument for this was presented to me by a priest many years ago… Jews, Christians and Muslims insist nude genitals offend their god because god created us, therefore our organ of creation belongs to god, not us, so must be concealed and only used for making babies. Before these mad monotheists eliminated all competition for spiritual power, most human societies accepted penises along with noses, fingers and everything else as natural—which they are, of course. There’s more nonsense along those lines such as seeing a penis sends everyone into an orgy of sexual frenzy and traumatises women and children. Nudists know that after less than a minute the penis ceases to be an object of rumour, curiosity, fascination and excitement.
Dr Rock, it is also a flexible way of making sure a serious offender doesn’t get off on a technicality. There’s a scottish case where a serious sex-offender ended up being sent down for breach of the peace and it was often referred to prior to anti-stalking legislation. There’s a large body of scottish case law that has established the display of the male genitals in front of women in a public place as a criminal offence.
From Google Maps:
H M Prison 3 Edinburgh Road, Perth PH2 8AT, United Kingdom
1. Head south-west towards Manson Terrace
(Restricted usage road) 46 ft
2. Turn right onto Manson Terrace 56 ft
3. Turn left onto Edinburgh Rd/A912 Continue to follow A912 Go through 1 roundabout 1.1 mi
4. Merge onto M90 via the ramp to Edinburgh 23.5 mi
5. At junction 3, take the A92/A907 exit to Kirkcaldy/Glenrothes/Dunfermline 0.2 mi
6. At the roundabout, take the 4th exit onto A907
Go through 4 roundabouts 2.4 mi
7. At the roundabout, take the 1st exit onto St. Margarets Dr/A823 0.4 mi
8. At the roundabout, take the 4th exit and stay on St. Margarets Dr/A823 0.5 mi
Dunfermline, Fife UK
So this feller did 33.5 miles, through 8 roundabouts, in three days, and then was arrested.
He possibly failed to signal correctly, on leaving the last roundabout. They can be very confusing