Protests - Part 45

 Vincent Bethell, Part 2

Previously, we saw this photo in my post about the Carnival Against Capital protest in London.  I should have recognized the guy at left.  He's Vincent Bethell, an English protester who demands the right to be naked in public, and I had already done another post about Vincent's protests.

But I've found a bunch more photos and videos of him, so today is Vincent Bethell, part 2.  Above, a policeman leading him away after Vincent protested nude outside the Houses of Parliament on June 24, 1998.

On June 8, 1999, Vincent protested nude in a fountain outside Buckingham Palace.

Here are the police dragging him away.

Later that month on June 25, Vincent was naked in the crowds of the Glastonbury music festival.

On July 28, 1999, Vincent climbed an ornate lamppost outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London and stripped naked to the delight of the crowd.  The building that looks like a cathedral is the Royal Courts of Justice.

From atop the lamppost, he urged passers-by to get naked, telling them that being naked was totally natural and should not be illegal.  Eventually the police came with ladders and hauled him down.

On August 13, 2000, the police arrested Vincent on a charge of disorderly behavior.  The next day he appeared naked before a judge, who told him to come back fully dressed to face the charges.  Vincent vowed to not put his clothes back on until the law is changed to allow public nudity.  Above, Vincent taking the London Underground after his court appearance.  The police promptly re-arrested him.

This time, he was held in prison for months without trial, refusing to wear clothes.  Above, a group of naked supporters on November 16, 2000 protesting his treatment.

He finally got his naked day in court on January 15, 2001.  He was the first person to appear naked in a British court.  He was charged with causing a public nuisance, a crime punishable by up to 10 years in prison.  The law, dating from Victorian times, refers, among other things, to male genitals but not female, because Queen Victoria believed that a female would never expose herself in public.  That means that a naked male can be charged under this law, but a naked female cannot.

(As a side note, Britain's anti-homosexual law was another Victorian law that applied only to males, not females.  Brilliant author Oscar Wilde was convicted under this law and served time in prison.  Brilliant mathematician Alan Turing, who cracked Nazi coded messages and helped win World War II, was also convicted under this law and was sentenced to undergo "chemical castration".  He later committed suicide.  The law was not repealed until 1967.)

Vincent Bethell was luckier.  The jury acquitted him.  Above, Vincent leaving the court, still naked, after his acquittal.  It appears that his hair and beard had been shaved off while he was in prison.

Finally free, Vincent resumed his naked life.  Above, he uses a phone booth.

Here he is doing some shopping.

And he resumed protesting.  Here he is the following year, at right, leading a naked protest march from Green Park to Westminster.