(York) The defendant, a French master was accused of outraging pubic decency: ‘for exposing his person at a window in Micklegate, York, to excite a girl who was a servant on the second floor of the house on the opposite side of the street.’
Held: Baron Parke said: ‘I left it to the jury to say whether those in the street could have seen him or not (not whether they did see him); and that, if they could have seen him, it was a nuisance.’ Exposure by the defendant to one person was not sufficient to constitute the offence, but if the jury found that the defendant was in such a position that those in the street could have seen him had they happened to look, it was an offence; it did not matter that no one in the street had actually seen him.
Judges:
Baron Parke
Citations:
[1830] Denman’s reports 344 (Note)
Cited by:
Cited – Hamilton, Regina v CACD 16-Aug-2007
The defendant appealed his conviction for outraging public decency. He had surreptitously filmed up the skirts of women in a supermarket. The offence was only discovered after the films were found on a search of his home for other material. The . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Crime
Updated: 14 May 2022; Ref: scu.258778
