I woke up early this morning and decided to go for a run – to improve my fitness.
It was very early, just past 5:30am, so I decided to do it naked. There would be few people on the street.
So this is what I did. I did get seen by people, cyclists, drivers, walkers who were presumably heading to work, or heading home after a night shift.
As I ran along the main road back toward home I was passed by a police car – it went quite slowly – but it didn't stop. It carried on along the road towards town.
The occupants must have seen me, but happily they must have decided that I wasn't breaking any laws or a danger to anyone. May the police take this sensible attitude in the future too.
38 thoughts on “Naked run – no bother”
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Wow! In my country, you go straight to jail and the news will all be abuzz about your arrest and what a shocking crime you have committed.
I am amazed that anyone can go out onto public streets naked in England, although I suspect the time of day was on your side. I know that any locals around where I live would certainly object to any nude walking I might do. As I live less than half a mile from a major police centre I have no plans to test them.
Oops. Double post
I'm impressed. And I thought I was taking risks just by stepping into areas around my house that can be seen from the street. But then, the laws (and police interpretation of those laws) around here are a bit confusing to me.
It's good to see members of the police force with such a good knowledge of the law in this area 🙂
Well done, good that the police didn't bother to stop you. As it is just for sports and body freedom without the intention to offend people, things like this should be possible.
Nice one Gus! You are an inspiration.
How I envy you Augustus and you all in the UK that have the "mostly" legal right to go about your essential daily rituals unencumbered by unnecessary accessory. I understand that not all of the wrinkles have been worked out of the law and that worse, not all of your officers of the law have read the law books lately. I have also enjoyed the good fortune of being able to stretch the boundaries of public attitude in your part of the world, most recently in Sussex and also in my ancestral country of Wales with no mis-adventure and come away very grateful for the experiences. In any case, Good Show, Augustus!!!
-Dan
I admire your courage and am delighted that you go away with it. You must have been lucky that the police in the car were either unusually knowledgeable regarding public nudity or late for their tea break!
I imagine this link has been posted here before, but here is a link that illustrates how much police reactions to public nudity varies across England:
http://clothesfreelife.com/2015/08/10/naturist-asks-what-sort-of-country-is-britain-for-people-who-want-to-be-clothes-free/
It seems that my police authority did not reply to your query.
Are you planning on staging such a walk? I'd certainly try to be part of it if you did.
No, I have no such plans, nor do I think did John Harding who conducted the 'survey' – he was simply exposing the huge variability in the knowledge and attitudes of the police in England.
I suspect there is similar variability even within the individual forces because there is a tendency for any officer to assume that nudity is illegal unless they happen to have had some experience that has drawn it to their attention that it is not. The problem is that if they arrest you before checking the law, it takes a brave officer to admit their mistake and all too many resort to section 5 of the Public Order Act in order to justify their arrest. Thankfully the CPS has now published guidelines that makes going ahead with such a prosecution less likely:
http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/l_to_o/nudity_in_public/
I just read the CPS document linked above. Thanks Brian. Very impressive. It appears that your law is still open to misuse, but the document makes repeatedly very clear that Naturism in its ordinary day-to-day sense is allowable under Crown law. It goes on to specifically site why fall backs to laws traditionally used to prosecute naturism in the UK under various existing/remaining sections of the code should not be used to arrest or prosecute for simple naturist related behavior.
We could only hope here in the US that a similar document national in scope, so clear and well defined might ever be available to the local and state governing bodies and law enforcement authority for their use in making sense of and amending the patchwork mess of anti nudity law that we now have in place cross our land.
That's great. The more often that human bodies are seen going about normal activity the more common people accept naked human beings as a normal part of life. Even the police seem to have become more accepting. Carpe Diem!
In the middle of Reading??? LOL
True, nothing special to it.
Good job, Gus. This reminds me of my own experience of being pulled over by the police for speeding while driving naked… http://www.naktiv.net/blog/553/driving-naked-into-a-police-speed-trap/
Theu could have just stopped you out of curiousity 🙂
They might have, but they didn't. I mean, it was pretty obvious what I was doing, running down the street with trainers on just like many other people do in my town every day.
Sounds like an example of the police knowing the law.