Stephen Gough has been in prison 17 times over the past decade (currently in HMP Perth) for living and walking naked. His run of sentences have amounted to almost six years continuous incarceration since 2006.

This account of Stephen Gough's extraordinary life outside - but mainly inside - jail is a compelling read. It's by Neil Forsyth ...

[www.guardian.co.uk]

Quotes:

"Gough and Roberts reached John O'Groats in February 2006. Once again, he'd finished his journey in the coldest months of the year. "Pretty cold but manageable," he says defiantly, insisting temperature is an issue only "when you stop, as that's when you start seizing up. The trick is to keep going." Local journalists reported Gough and Roberts walking stoically through "lashing rain"."

En route for one of his trials:

"On 18 May 2006, a fully-clothed Gough boarded a 6.45am flight from Southampton. After the pilot announced the descent into Edinburgh, Gough visited the toilet and emerged naked. "I knew I wanted to go to court naked and I suddenly thought, why not now? The flight attendant asked if I'd put my clothes back on."

Any views on this?

good article

"conduct which does, or could, cause the public to be placed in a state of fear, alarm or annoyance"

such as wasting however many thousand pounds of taxpayers money convicting and locking up a guy who, while pretty eccentric for sure, doesn't seem to be doing anyone any harm?

"Seeing a man's penis was felt to be enough to cause fear and alarm"

i wouldn't have though that'd be too much of a problem in the highlands in winter....

If you want to walk about naked in Scotland in winter, then I suppose that's your choice. When the authorities take an interest in you and tell you not to do it or you'll be arrested, and you thereafter continue anyway, then you're a fool.

To be jailed for doing it is one thing. To spend longer in prison than some people who take the life of another person is quite another. Does he not start it again every time they let him out and he gets lifted again three miles later?

I wouldn't want to have to explain to my kids what he was playing at. He's not going to beat the authorities so to continue on regardless he must be mentally ill in some capacity.

agree with nelbert. the problem is that even if this guy has no malicious intent and only wants to enjoy himself by feeling the cold winter air on his bawsac out of view of anyone who might be offended (which i doubt, he strikes me as a massive attention seeker), the next step is that someone who does have malicious intent copies him then relies on his case to assert his 'right' to walk around naked in some other place which is more public. in our society its a (sad) fact that reasonable people occasionally have to curtail behaviour which is reasonable when they do it so that the nutters can't use it as an excuse. normal people would not get as worked up about this as this guy so it strikes me that this guy is a bit of a weirdo. a normal person would say ok, fair enough, i can see your point, which i disagree with, but i''ll stop doing it for the good of society. this guy wants to put some pants (cos pants would be all it takes) on and stop being such a selfish pervert.

If he'd been left to finish the last few days of his original Lands End to John o Groats walk I wonder if the cost to the taxpayer of this absurd saga would have been exactly £0.

my thoughts exactly alan, we have far more important things to worry about. what also concerns me is this:

"The prosecution has very rarely managed to rustle up witnesses to claim Gough's nakedness has had any of these effects on them. What is keeping him in prison is simply the theoretical idea that it could."

If you establish that as a precedent then where do we end up :O

My thoughts on this is who cares, If he is doing for the attention then lets ignore him. As for being naked in public I would explain it to my young kids that the bloke is daft as its far too cold to wandering about outside naked. I dont think he is doing it for any kind of sexual kinks but I can see the difference between someone naked some one standing in a park flashing folk and I am pretty sure your average policeman can too.

Yes.

But if he's walking up the side of the A9, how many families are gonna be going past him and how many small kids are going to be exposed to his nudity.

How do we know he's not getting his kicks out of this any more or any less than the bloke standing outside the primary school playground in his long mac touching himself...?

For info, he no longer gets locked up North of Perth as the guideline here is to ignore him.

I sure was scarred from seeing a streaker once when I was younger.

Wait.

Male or female streaker...?

Leave him be. It is absolutely shocking that he has been persecuted by the legal system. Being naked, whilst causing no harm to anyone, should not be a crime.

As a society perhaps we are too prudish. We have been institutionalised into viewing (no pun intended) the naked human body as a sexual object. It isn't.

I don't think my kids would be mentally scarred by seeing a naked man walking along the road, I think they would giggle about it. My 7 year old nephew saw a streaker at the rugby recently. He thought it was hilarious and thought he must of been dared to do it by his friends.

Prudish uptight adults pass on the prudish uptight ways to their children and hence it continues that nudity is something to hide or be ashamed of. Plenty other nations are quite happy and relaxed with the naked body being displayed. I personally think the bloke is bonkers for wandering about naked due to our cool climate but I would not waste any time or resources arresting or jailing him and I am glad to hear that the northern police are taking a sensible viewpoint on it.

"Ignore" is the right plan here.
If he wants to walk naked, then that is fine by me.Keeping him as a guest of Her Majesty is just crazy.Rather different if he wants to hang round schools or manipulate himself in public, but I don't think that has ever been the problem.
Let him out, he does the walk, job done.

He broke the law - paid the penalty, broke the law again paid a higher penalty, broke the law again and on it goes - dont see the problem here. Also dont see many folks taken up the fight to re-peal the law. HE IS IN THE WRONG, it is his actions that are causing the waste of tax payers money.