A MAN known as the Naked Rambler has lost his case at the European Court of Human Rights where he claimed he had a right to be naked in public.
Former marine Stephen Gough, from Eastleigh, Hampshire, had alleged that his repeated arrest, prosecution, conviction and imprisonment for being naked in public and his treatment in detention violated his rights.
The court unanimously found there had been no violation of Articles 8 and 10 of the Convention.
Gough, 54, has walked naked throughout the United Kingdom, from John O'Groats to Land's End, and is a well-known campaigner for his right to appear nude in public, even though his actions have often landed him in prison.
He spent a total of five years and three months in detention from May 2006 to July 2011, when his arrest for breaching the peace sparked the current case before the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg.
He was approached by two police officers on Manson Terrace leading from HMP Perth and their suggestion that he put on some clothes fell on deaf ears.
Gough was sentenced to a total of one year, nine months and 18 days in prison.
The ECHR ruled yesterday: "The applicant's imprisonment is the consequence of his repeated violation of the criminal law in full knowledge of the consequences, through conduct which he knew full well not only goes against the standards of accepted public behaviour in any modern democratic society but also is liable to be alarming and morally and otherwise offensive to other, unwarned members of the public going about their ordinary business."
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