Veteran campaigner Vincent Bethell told today (MON
Veteran campaigner Vincent Bethell told today (MON) how his battle for the right to go naked in public had cost him a four month stay on a segregation wing at Brixton Prison.
The 28-year-old artist told a jury his ‘Freedom to be Yourself’ campaign was launched in the ‘hot’ summer of 1997 when he noticed the ‘strange reactions’ of people to the naked body.
‘I thought, my god, I have to hide myself.
.
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to hide being me,’ he told a jury at London’s Southwark Crown Court.
Later resorting to direct action, he said he had not worn clothes since August 13 last year when he was arrested in Kensington.
Inspired by athlete Zola Budd doing nothing more than running barefoot, he said he was always interested in human beings and social behaviour.
‘I have always been interested in what is being a human being.
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a socially self-aware life form,’ he said.
‘It’s just me.
.
.
being what I am.
It’s just my skin, being a human being.
.
.
just going about my existence.
‘
At first he said he wrote letters to Parliament, questioning why it was illegal to go about in the natural form ‘and if so, why it was illegal.
‘
The defendant also sent correspondence to his local MP in Coventry, the Home Office and to the police.
‘Quite often I did not get a reply so I decided I had to take direct action, although I did not enjoy taking direct action.
‘
He said society had too many ‘hang-ups’ but he wanted to he aimed to be ‘just happy in myself, to be at ease with myself.
‘
Bethell is alleged to have caused a public nuisance by going about without wearing a stitch.
The defendant of Stoney Station Road, Coventry, who appears in the dock in his birthday suit, is alleged to have broken the law over a five week period in the summer by going naked in public.
The charge of causing a public nuisance alleges that between July 14 and August 22, last year, he went naked and ‘refused to wear clothes’ in London and Bristol.
The allegation lists his nude appearances as being in: The Broadway, outside New Scotland Yard; Exhibition Road, South Kensington; Euston Station; The Strand; Long Acre, Covent Garden; all in Central London; and St Augustine Road, Bristol.
Before Bethell gave evidence, trial Judge George Bathurst-Norman allowed him to walk from the dock to the witness box ‘in all his glory’ rather than clear the court as has been his usual practice when Bethell has walked from the cells.
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However, he told the ten men and two women on the jury panel: ‘I suggest at least the ladies amongst you close your eyes or look away as he takes the witness box.
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Bethell told the court a ‘flurry of protest’ began in 1998 outside the Houses of Parliament, Buckingham Palace, St Paul’s Cathedral, and the Royal Courts of
Justice.
‘You always get a warning to put your clothes on.
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sometimes you don’t,’ said Bethell.
‘Sometimes you get arrested and released without charge – but more often I was arrested to try and seek some kind of resolution from the courts – that’s why many protests were outside courts.
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Breaking for the winter, which he said was ‘impractical’ for his form of demonstration, Bethell began planning last summer’s campaign which took him around the country on a lecture tour and also a trial-run in Brighton.
But he denied his activities caused ‘outrage’, but said people appeared genuinely interested in his point of view – or like arresting officers ‘smiled’.
‘There are people taken aback, it is a bit of an eye-opener, but I don’t notice any outrage,’ he maintains.
‘It is unusual, nakedness, and it makes people look.
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but it was smiles and whispers – but in a good humoured way.
‘It brings a bit of brightness.
‘
Finally on August 21 last year, bailed from Bow Street Magistrates Court on condition he remain clothed, he was arrested once again and remanded in
custody.
The trial continues.
ends
