SIR: I'm afraid that F Westwell (Letters March 16) is as perverse in his opinions as he is mistaken in his facts. To describe homosexual activity as "unnatural", when the phenomenon occurs throughout nature, is simply a nonsense.

The case he refers to, in which men from Horwich were imprisoned, was the now notorious "Spanner" trial. That case, like that of the Bolton Seven, came to light because of a video recording, although the Spanner video was distributed in a way which the Bolton Seven video was not.

The men in the Spanner trial were not, as Mr Westwell claims, heterosexual, and the charges they faced did not relate to breach of the privacy laws. In that case the prosecution contended, and the court agreed, that consent to the sexual activity was invalid because of the sado-masochistic nature of the sexual acts.

The Spanner case went through the long process of appeal to Europe and the European court finally, last year, ruled against the defendants. The Bolton Seven case, in contrast, had no sado-masochist element and the fact that there was valid consent was not challenged by the prosecution.

The restrictions on homosexual privacy embodied in the present law are in stark contradiction to the principles and recommendations of both the Wolfenden report and of the more recent report on sexual offences by the Criminal Law Revision Committee. Consequently, that law can no longer enjoy the respect or support of fair-minded and unprejudiced people.

Allan Horsfall

Life-President

Campaign for

Homosexual Equality

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