Can you help our NAG submission on Hate Crime?

[John Wood]

This topic is now locked If you have details of any personal incidents you would like to disclose, I can be contacted at this email address john.kenneth.wood@naturistactiongroup.co.uk

Why naturists need a NAG Hate Crime campaign

As more and more people become involved in naturism, there will be more and more naturists being seen naked in public places. This increase seems to be going hand-in-hand with the amount of abuse being imposed on naturists by members of the public – simply for being a naturist.
This can range from threats and verbal abuse (being called a nonce, pervert, etc.) and can escalate into personal injury and damage to property. If an incident is reported to the police, it is seldom given any degree of priority or seriousness. And a successful prosecution is virtually unheard of.

The Law Commission recognises that the current definitions are not wide enough in scope. It is currently seeking Submissions relating to hate crime incidents. For details see https://www.lawcom.gov.uk/project/hate-crime/

Have you been subjected to Hate Crime - simply because you are a naturist?

We are putting together a NAG Submission. If you have details of any personal incidents you would like to disclose, we welcome details of your incident sent to me via email. It would be helpful to receive your comments by the end of November. I can be contacted at john.kenneth.wood@naturistactiongroup.co.uk

There are laws to protect some minority groups against Hate Crime of this nature but, unfortunately, naturists were never included. There is no place in modern society for any kind of discrimination and we believe that naturists should be legally protected against Hate Crime in exactly the same way that other minority groups are protected. Ideally, Hate Crime against naturists should be universally recognised as a Criminal Offence.

This could lead to a wider number of categories being added to the Hate Crime list.  For NAG this involves creating a Submission, explaining why we think that such action against naturists should be added.  We will include a detailed list of any Hate Crime incidents made towards naturists. These real-life incidents will reinforce our argument that changes need to be made. Therefore, it is vital that any incidents are developed into a Submission and this needs to be submitted before the 20th of December deadline.

It would be helpful for me to receive your comments by the end of November. Please note that it is important to include only incidents which are true and accurate. If an incident is later proved to be exaggerated in any way, it will discredit the whole argument.

British Naturism started working on this during summer 2019 when they created a Hate Crime Team who asked for details of members’ incidents. The work that BN have done on this so far has been exceptional and the BN project is still ongoing. It is inevitable that incidents will occur which do not get reported into BN. This is why NAG has decided to work alongside BN, so that the widest number of incidents can be reported into the Law Commission.

As the NAG Hate Crime project leader I have contacted BN to suggest the possibility of NAG working alongside BN to present our Submissions collectively. This proposal has been welcomed by BN and a partnership between the two will definitely strengthen our argument.

The deadline for all Submissions is 20th of December 2020 and our Submission will need to be prepared before this date. We are putting together a small NAG project team. If you have any expertise, or may be able to help in the development of the NAG Submission, please contact me now.

John Wood         john.kenneth.wood@naturistactiongroup.co.uk

[Duncan Heenan]

I fully endorse all John has said. We certainly need examples of hate crime against naturists, so please send them in - and soon! We'd also value the views of naturists as to why they think naturists should have the extra protection of being cover by future hate crime legislation.

Verbal abuse can be very upsetting, but it is rarely a crime which the police take seriously. However, violence or the threat of violence, or attempted violence certainly is a crime. NAG recommends that if you have suffered any kind of crime from being a naturist you should report it to the police, and if possible, identify the perpetrator. Never return violence for violence, or abuse for abuse, though - it only makes it worse.   

[John Paine]

It is possible for details of hate against naturists instances to be given to our Hate Crime Team in confidence. Even if a prosecution has led to court action currently under way then the matter can be referred to in the NAG Submission, without details, as being sub judice.
It is important to provide as many instances as possible from around the UK to substantiate our suggested need for naturism to be legally included in the Hate Crime list.
Any NAG Supporter who has expertise which could help in drafting our Submission is particularly welcome. John Wood and the NAG team would appreciate such help.
John Paine Chair of NAG 

[John Wood]

I want to make an appeal to anybody who is still debating whether or not to send us details of an existing hate crime incident. I hope the following will give you a little bit more encouragement.

You don’t need me to tell you that there is a desperate need for changes to the system. It’s almost certain that any free range naturist will have been affected at some time by an unprovoked attack. Not necessarily a physical attack; it could be a verbal attack where somebody starts shouting at you and calling you a pervert or a nonce and issuing threats. Any of this is possible from irate members of the public – just because you are naked.

As a free range naturist myself, I’ve had to cope with several uprovoked incidents where members of the public have responded by being nasty and shouting abuse when they see me innocently walking along naked. It can be very frightening and it can totally destroy your personal confidence. That's why I’m leading this campaign and I have so much interest in its success.
 
You might be wondering if your incident is severe enough to qualify as hate crime. And that’s the problem; at the moment it probably wouldn’t be.

The law its self does not need to be changed. Hate crime legislation is already in place to protect certain minority groups against many kinds of abuse and discrimination. But naturists were never included. So, what we need to do is to try to ensure that naturists also become included in some way so that we are all offered the same legal protection in law.

Unfortunately, you can’t simply phone the Law Commission one day and ask “Pretty please, could naturists be included in the hate crime laws?” It has to be done at a time when they are specifically asking for feedback and, among other things, you have to show them that your argument is valid. This is best done by creating a list of genuine incidents which have occurred to real people and submitting the list to the Law Commission as a Submission before a certain deadline date.

It stands to reason that a list of 500 incidents would be much more effective than a list containing only 2 incidents. This is why we need as many people as possible to come forward with details of incidents which we can present to the Law Commission. You might only have one or two incidents which you believe would not make that much difference. But every single incident will add to the collective total to give us more ammunition and make our argument much stronger.

Of course, there are no guarantees that changes will be made even after a Submission. But we need to do everything we can to influence the authorities with our viewpoint. We need to show them that we believe changes SHOULD be made. We might never get another chance.

NAG can do nothing without your help. I would urge anybody with an incident to contact me by email at john.kenneth.wood@naturistactiongroup.co.uk with the details as soon as possible.

Our collective voices can make a big difference. Let’s make some changes!

[Harvey Allen]

hope that this helps

[John Wood]

hope that this helps

Thanks Harvey.

It's now added to the list.