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We have been to Liverpool pride event my friend caught a fella taking pictures up skirt she and challenged him he laughed it of we found a police officer and reported it he told us there is no law as we are in a crowded place and my friend was wearing underwear no offence was committed
The police officer is correct in that under the laws of England & Wales it's not an offence to take a photo of somebody in a public place. And by wearing a skirt the woman has allowed for the possibility of such a shot to be taken (this is the legal position - not my opinion). However, if it causes offence, then the perpetrator can be charged with 'breach of the peace'. That was an option available to the policeman, but it's a pretty minor offence, and presumably the police officer was there to help keep things safe and would therefore be reluctant to get involved in charging someone for such a minor transgression. If you had reacted violently, then that would have been a major offence and then it would have been you getting charged and prosecuted. The legal position is: if you don't want to be the victim of an upskirt fan, don't wear a skirt.
What a freaking dirtbag that guy was! Hopefully someone will give him a sound thrashing someday.
It's technically not illegal, but it's certainly morally dubious and something I feel strongly about. We can actually change the law on this if there is a test case. I think your friend has been violated and, if she feels strongly enough, should take this further.
There won't be a test case precisely because it's not illegal. Things go to court when the CPS are of the opinion that there's sufficient evidence that a law or laws has/have been broken and it is in the public interest to prosecute.
But isn't a test case about changing the law? The fact that it's not illegal now is beneficial. Precedents can only be set against what is established.
No. The law is not changed in court, it's changed in Parliament. Precedents refer to case law, which is about past decisions in terms of interpretation of the law, but cases don't end up in court without an existing law being broken in the first place.
I did some research. You're right. Although I'm not going to back down on the idea that precedents are set against what is established, given that I didn't define the parameters of what establishment is.
Yes, precedents are set in court. Let's take the example of downloading illegal pornography. Police examine the perpetrator's hard drives. They manage to recover 1,000 images, but it is clear these had already been deleted. Can the perpetrator be prosecuted successfully? There was a 'test case' on this, with the prosecution arguing that the images were still feasibly available to the defendant by means of recovery software, whereas the defence argued that he didn't have such software. The point here was not whether illegal images were or were not illegal; it wouldn't have gone to court in the first place without a law being broken. The point was whether or not the defendant could be said to possess those images once deleted, and the judge eventually ruled in favour of the defence, thereby setting a precedent. In all subsequent cases, this precedent has influenced interpretation of the law. But again, precedents are not about creating laws, they're about establishing ways of interpreting existing laws and of applying them to specific cases.