Prostitution: Behind Closed… Fence Panels?

From Uproxx.com 28/08/10:

Police in Zurich, Switzerland have set up “drive-in sex boxes” in the city’s red light district. The boxes give prostitutes more privacy when they work, because if there’s one thing prostitutes are known for, it’s shyness. Actually, the boxes are for the benefit of people living in the area, one of whom said, “They get up to all sorts in broad daylight – and we’re sick to death of looking at it.” I think the paper made a mistake. Shouldn’t the last half of that sentence be, “and I’m running out of popcorn and this lawn chair is making my butt look like plaid”?

I guess this is one way of combatting the problem, even if they do look a bit like green fence panels from the average garden centre. And I would have thought that these panels would prove much too tempting for kids to explore when they play hide and seek or whatever kids get up to these days. 

The fact remains, though, that shielding the problem from the watchful eyes of residents isn’t dealing with it.  I can’t see the idea catching on internationally.

As an aside, I’ve never looked at prostitution the same way since a rather unfortunate episode as an undergraduate. (And no, it’s not what you’re thinking).

I naively made a comment in a paper referring to prostitution being illegal under Anglo/Welsh law. The lecturer quickly cut me down to size and explained that it was not illegal per se but rather that certain activities connected with it were. When I received the paper back, it was one of those internal grimace moments that has stayed with me ever since.  Still, it gave me a great chance to legitimately review all things (including the law) relating to prostitution – which can’t be a bad thing.

Man jailed after grabbing hold of chopper

From BBC News 03/08/10:

A man has been sentenced to a year in prison for endangering the safety of an aircraft when he grabbed a helicopter as it took off in Bristol.

Bristol Crown Court was told Houshang Jafari, 58, became "extremely angry" after the helicopter landed near his flat, causing debris to hit his car.

Jafari was said to have become angry when the private aircraft blew debris at his Range Rover.

He approached the helicopter, threw a bag of rubbish at its nose and then kicked it.

As the pilot tried to take off, Jafari grabbed the skid bar as it was about 6ft (1.83m) off the ground.

This caused the helicopter to lurch to the right. An eyewitness told the court the aircraft narrowly missed nearby houses as it "swerved around" and "flew erratically" away.

Sentencing Jafari, Judge Michael Roach said it was a "deliberate and much more a reckless and dangerous act" and, despite the fact he was a business and family man, he had "no choice" other than to send him to prison.

It’s a trite remark but I might as well make it: this outcome was a bit of a no-brainer.

By the looks of Jafari’s picture, he’s not as svelte as he used to be, so it’s no wonder the small helicopter lurched so much when he leapt at the skid. And unless he was trying impersonate Roger Moore (or his stunt double) in the opening scenes of, ‘For Your Eyes Only’ just what was he really trying to achieve?  I’m also curious whether he’d have done the same thing if it was an air ambulance trying to take off.

So now that Jafari has landed himself a custodial sentence, I’m sure he’ll be asking himself whether it was worth getting so het-up about. I mean, what kind of damage can a few loose blades of grass blown in the chopper’s downdraught do to Range Rover? If he’s that pernickety, maybe he should consider legal action against the scores of irksome summer flies who have the temerity to fly into his windscreen at speed, thereby pureeing themselves and soiling his precious motor?

Another police visit – what MUST the neighbours think?

Somewhat worryingly, we had a second visit from the police earlier today. The first came a couple of weeks ago when a policewoman called looking for a previous tenant. After suffering the ignominy of struggling to get the front door open – never a good sign – I then had to explain that we knew nothing of the ‘wanted man’. Knowing better than to ask what Mr X was ‘wanted for’, I had to let my imagination fill in the gaps: needless to say, we’ve been viewing that slight hump in the back lawn with renewed suspicion all afternoon.

Of course, it never looks good when you have a police car parked outside your house and an officer ring the bell but I thankfully refrained from yanking him through the front door in a Hyacinth Bucket manner. Given that we couldn’t offer him any useful information he was soon on his way after exchanging pleasantries and apologising for disturbing us - what a nice chap! Just to add to the embarrassment, though, he made a point of taking an inordinately long time before driving off. And yes, I’m sure those net curtains where twitching left, right and centre all along the close. Typical!

Fraudulent eBay seller faces prosecution

From BBC News 05/07/10:

An eBay trader has been given a community service order and made to pay nearly £5,000 in fines and costs for bidding on his own items to increase the price.

Barrett became the first person in the UK to be prosecuted over online auction fixing after admitting that he used two separate eBay accounts to bid against himself.

Officers found he was selling goods on the auction website under the username "shanconpaul", while bidding on them under the identity "paulthebusman".

He also posted positive feedback from these accounts.

Barrett said he did not realise that bidding on his own items - which included a pie and pasty warmer priced at £127 - was a criminal offence.

A what? Who the hell needs one of those and should it really cost almost £130? And if you did need one and did cost that much, would you really choose to get it from eBay?

 

The 39-year-old admitted breaches of the Business Protection from Misleading Marketing Regulations 2008 and the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008.

Ian Williamson of international law firm Bird & Bird LLP said anybody bidding against themselves could also face prosecution under the Fraud Act 2006, which is applicable in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

A conviction under the Fraud Act can lead to a maximum fine of £5,000 per offence and up to 12 months in prison.

In England and Wales, the offence of conspiracy to defraud, which makes it an offence for parties to agree to defraud another party, could cover a situation where people agree to bid on each other's items.

Sham bidding and other dubious concerted practices can be a fundamental problem for all auctions – not just those held online, of course.  As you might expect, eBay have always seemed relatively committed to fighting problems that plague their site – albeit not always that proactively.  This prosecution has got to be welcomed, no matter how you slice it.

But what really surprises me is that eBay is still going as strong as it is, quite honestly. Who the heck uses it anymore? That said, I did find it useful for picking up cheap ink for my inkjet printers in the past and I’m due to place an order. Is my first eBay order of 2010 pending?

Shoplifter smiles for the photographer

From Houston Press Blogs 24/06/11:

You're an athletic woman who likely can easily outrun any employee of a mall shop. So even if they're scrambling after you yelling "Shoplifter!!" as loud as they can, you know you can make it to the parking lot and freedom.

Just one tip: Don't have your escape route go right by a professional photographer taking pictures.

One Sugar Land shoplifter didn't follow that guideline, and now police have a series of fine photos catching her escape as it happened. At no charge!

Photographer Barry Sigman ... [said]... "I saw somebody run past me followed by another person who was yelling, 'shoplifter' over and over again."

"At one point she threw some things into the bushes then ran 20 yards, and for some reason she went back for them. That's when I captured her face on my camera."

What did she throw away and go back for? Maybe she ditched the goods in an attempt to avoid detection and then indignantly thought she’d made too much effort to go home empty handed?  Or perhaps she chucked her iPhone by mistake? In any case, going back to rummage in the bushes proved to be her downfall.

"I flagged down the police and showed them a picture," Sigman says. "They were looking for a male, but they know now that it was a female."

Ouch! Talk about adding insult to injury. She’s not that manly looking is she? Actually, don’t answer that!

Anyway, this reminded me of a story I heard when starting a retail job as a student. There, the security guards joyously regaled us with the tale about how they were able to rugby tackle a shoplifter to the ground after she had voluntarily come back into the store to collect her kids who she had initially forgotten in the excitement of making off with several hundred quids’ worth of goods.

Oh well – that’s modern parenting for you.  

A pizza the action

From Stupid Criminals (Discovery.com) 30/05/11:

Wynika Mason ... had a beef (we can't verify if that is a figure of speech or an actual topping in the dispute) with employees at a Louisville Pizza Hut.

Witty. Really witty.

Suddenly, out of a sheath [shouldn’t that be ‘scabbard’?] she pulled a full-sized sword, apparently intending to go all medieval on the workers. Unfortunately, her threat oozed [really – it ‘oozed’? I didn’t know threats did that] beyond her intended victims and spread to her fellow pizza patrons. Giant swords are like that.

Her brother diffused the situation before police arrived by disarming Wynika and placing the sword in his car. Just the same, once the authorities arrived our would-be Captain Jacqueline Sparrow [oooh, witty] was arrested for disorderly conduct and menacing.

Really? Is that all?  For taking a sword to pizza hut?

I wonder what she’ll raise in mitigation.  The fact she was planning to order a thick crust?  The restaurant's own cutlery was inadequate?   Anyway, isn’t pizza meant to be finger-food?

 

This whole episode just reinforces our contention that all pizza was meant to be delivered.

Or just avoided perhaps. I’ve always found it rather over-rated to be honest.

Cort and Farrell convicted of the murder of Vina Patel

I know that Pooni over at her blog has covered this story as it unfolded but now the verdict’s in, I thought I might as well throw in my two-penneth. As I remember, Pooni suffered a barrage of abuse a few weeks ago from a couple of cyberspatial scumbags, leading her to take some of the posts down.

The story of the murder of Vina Patel is utterly chilling in the audacity of the perpetrators and the cold-bloodedness of the plot.

From BBC News 28/05/10:

John Cort, 54, of Rutland Street, Leicester, was convicted at Nottingham Crown Court of killing Vina Patel so he could claim life insurance.

Hit man Brian Farrell, 37, of Queensborough Terrace, west London, was jailed for a minimum term 27 years.

The body of 51-year-old Mrs Patel was found at the bottom of the stairs at Cort and Co solicitors in Blackbird Road, Leicester, on 15 January 2009.

During the trial, the court heard that debt-ridden Cort hired Farrell to commit the murder in the belief it would lead to a huge insurance pay-out.

Mrs Patel suffered a broken neck as well as other injuries.

The court evidence suggested she had either fallen because she was being attacked or had been attacked then her body arranged to make it look like an accident.

There are undertones of the Michael Peterson story here (which was publicised in the gripping ‘death on the staircase’ documentary and which aired a few years ago in the UK). Here, though, there was always far less doubt as the culpability of the defendants.

The judge said: "That you, Mr Cort, were able to have murdered a close friend of 30 years, erstwhile lover of 20 years and partner prepared to help you with your divorce, reveals your true character.

"You are a controlling person who will stop at nothing to achieve your aims.

"You were the driving force behind the murder."

Hopefully the verdict will at least afford the family of Vina Patel some small degree of closure from this horrible ordeal.

Extreme Pornography and Sex with a Squid

From This is Swansea

A Mumbles man has appeared in court charged with possessing an "extreme pornographic" image of someone having sex with a dead octopus or squid.

Andrew Charles Dymond, of Dunns Lane, is also alleged to have had images which showed a person performing sex acts with horses and dogs.

The 46-year-old, who faces a total of 25 porn charges, entered a unanimous no plea when he came before Swansea magistrates.

The charge involving the sea creature states the image was of someone "performing an act of intercourse with a dead animal, namely an octopus/squid, which was grossly offensive, disgusting or otherwise of an obscene character".

Dymond is also alleged to have made 14 indecent photos of children, as well as possessing an additional 57 images.

Four of the allegations state he had images showing an act which would or was likely to result in "serious injury to a person's breasts".

A further charge makes the same allegation but in relation to someone's genitals.

Leigh Davies, defending Dymond, said: "This is a case that's probably better dealt with in the Crown Court".

Magistrates declined jurisdiction.

As perversions go, Dymond doesn’t seem to be prejudicial as to which he (allegedly) favours and it certainly promises to be an interesting case.  The relatively new provisions relating to extreme pornography are still somewhat controversial - particularly amongst civil libertarians - who feel that outside of child pornography, consenting adults should be broadly free to enter into and record their sexual antics for dissemination without restriction. 

Skirt-ban-man breaches ASBO

From BBC News 06/05/10:

A man banned from wearing skirts or showing bare legs on school days has been found guilty of breaching an Asbo.

Peter Trigger, 60, from Farndon Close, Northampton, was given an anti-social behaviour order in December 2008.

He is forbidden from behaving in a manner which causes or is likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress.

Northampton Magistrates' Court found him guilty of harassing his neighbours but declined to activate a suspended prison sentence he also faced.

Trigger had been banned from wearing a skirt or showing bare legs on a school day between 0830 and 1000 and 1445 and 1600 GMT or BST, the court was told.

What about lunch periods though?  Some schoolchildren return home for lunch and what kid deserves to be subjected to that sight, lurking about on the pavement?  Anyone seeing Trigger bending over awkwardly, supposedly fiddling with his shoe-laces while dressed in his school-girl get-up, would surely lose their appetite or require several hundred hours of counselling.  Or both.

Magistrates found him guilty of breaching the Asbo by deliberately bending over in front of his neighbours early in the morning on 16 December last year, causing them harassment, alarm and distress.

I should think it did!

Trigger was given the Asbo, which runs until 2013, in December 2008 after parents complained he was waiting near a primary school in the town dressed in clothes similar to school uniform.

He also has a 12-week suspended prison sentence for exposure imposed last year.

Bending over, using the the ‘tying shoe laces’ or ‘picking up debris’ excuse like that was never going to wash in court, though.  The judge spared Trigger a jail term, justifying it on the basis that he’s a carer for his elderly mother.  He might be a devoted son, but I think Trigger would better benefit from therapy rather than being slapped with a ASBO.  And as for him being required to pay court costs, £100 fine and, brace yourselves, £15 to his victims is a touch futile, quite honestly.

“You have the human right to dress as you wish...” [but arguably not as a schoolgirl - at least not in public].

Final thought: I wonder if he shaves his legs?  :-/

Speed camera captures 'full moon'

From BBC News 1.5.08:

A front seat car passenger was photographed baring his backside at a speed camera in Northumberland.

The "mooning" man was snapped by the mobile camera as the black BMW X5 drove past on the A1171 Dudley Lane in Cramlington last month. His behaviour has been labelled as "dangerous and offensive" by road safety campaigners.

Police may take action against the man for public order offences and not wearing a seat belt. Officers have the registration of the car, which was not breaking the speed limit, and intend to contact its owner. It is understood the driver will not face prosecution as no driving offence was being committed.

I guess it brings a new meaning to those cheesy car-window stickers, 'smile for the speed camera'.  This story reminded me of the time when someone from my secondary school mooned at the bus driver after the journey home, as schoolboys - well, prefects in this instance - are wont to do. 

What I immediately wondered was whether it was pre-meditated.  I'm assuming it was, here.  Did the driving duo pass the mobile unit and think, "I'm going to get that sucker on the way back"?  Did then, as the driver approached the 'drop zone' give his passenger the nod as it were, indicating it was time to 'pull them down' and bare all?  Surely he must have: I mean, manoeuvring oneself round to an angle and position to moon out of the window is not exactly an easy trick to pull off without warning, even in an SUV.

When Lawyers Panic

From the Times 30/04/09 – Lawyer of the Week (Jo Pizzala)

What was your worst day as a lawyer?

In a particularly awful domestic violence case, I suspected that a husband whom I was acting against was parking outside my office (he had been in prison for firearms offences). I called the police and an innocent man who was merely looking for a parking space for the dentist next door was cuffed and thrown across the bonnet of his car by the armed rapid response team.

‘Easily done’, I guess.  And ‘better safe than sorry’.  Any other tired clichéd phrases I can throw at it?  No, I think that will do for now.

Man charged with battery after blowing nose all over girlfriend

From Popjolly.com 25/04/10:

A 44 year old man from Crestview, Florida  has been charged with battery after his girlfriend told police that he sealed off one nostril and blew the contents of the other all over her.

According to Crestview Police Department’s arrest report, the nostril contained blood and other bodily fluids. The man had been in another altercation which caused his nose to bleed.

The report noted that the woman had blood splattered on her face, chest, arms and pants but there were no signs of any injury on her. The man is due in court on May 4.

I realise you’re meant to share things with your other half when in a relationship but nose gunk mixed with blood really isn’t one of them.

As well as reporting her charming lover to the police, I wonder what else she did to get her own back?!?

I’m also curious what stance the DPP would have taken if this had occurred in England / Wales.

BTW: I had great fun thinking up titles for this post; alas most of them were un-publishable and had to go something conservative in the end!! ;-)

Bar Stool Driver Charged with Drink Driving

Only just stumbled across this gem. 

From Sky News 02.04.09:

A man in Ohio has been charged with drink driving after he crashed a motorised bar stool at 20mph.

Kile Wygle, 28, adapted a regular bar stool and fitted it with a steering wheel, tyres and a small engine.

He managed to escape the crash with only a minor injury to his head but immediately had his licence suspended by police.

While he was being treated by paramedics, Wygle told a police officer he had consumed "a lot" of beers before he drove the stool.

However, he later changed his story saying he only consumed alcohol after the crash.

"I drank quite a bit after I wrecked because my head hurt so bad," he told a local TV station.

"I went in and drank a half a bottle of whiskey."

As you do.

So it seems that racing motorised bar stools is considered a sport in some parts of the US. I guess everyone needs a hobby.

Moped rider burns up the streets – literally

From Ananova.com 30/03/10:

A James Bond fan fed up with drivers cutting him up on his moped invented the ultimate gadget to gain his revenge - a 15ft flamethrower.

Colin Furze, 30, from Stamford in Lincolnshire, spent a month converting the 60mph sports scooter in his back garden.

"It's a lot of fun and when I fire the flames out the back it makes me feel just like James Bond," said Mr Furze.

"The flames are pretty big and up to 15 feet long so you could definitely set fire to someone's car if you wanted to.

"The only problem is it can get rather hot if you are riding the moped and blast the flames when the wind is in the wrong direction."

But he added: "I've been told that if I fire the flames while riding on the road it's equivalent to using a fire arm and I could be in a lot of trouble," he said.

Wow. If I found myself driving behind him, I think I’d find myself a lay-by to pull into pretty sharpish.

And it’s not just ‘being in a lot of trouble’, for his homemade flamethrower being equivalent to a firearm that he’ll have to worry about; off the top of my head, I’d say he’d be caught by s6 of the Road Traffic Act 1991 amongst many other things.

The farmyard fetishist strikes again

^{Photo from Flickr}

From the Metro 24/03/11:

Truscott was found in a field, covered in manure and mud and naked apart from a single sock, by a Cornish farmer’s 16-year-old son on February 26.

Strange that Truscott opted to keep just one sock on. Let’s hope it wasn’t a white one, else he’s going to have a tough time getting the stains out.

Truro crown court heard that the 41-year-old, of Camborne, Cornwall, was already jailed for an arson attack at the farm belonging to Clive Roth in Redruth, in which one cow was killed.

He had terrorised farmer Mr Roth and his family for six years with his fetish for manure.

He had also been involved in a number of other offences related to his sexual thrill for rolling in slurry.

Truscott was jailed for breaching a restraining order and harassment.

His defence lawyer said he was ‘sad, socially inadequate and vulnerable.’

Hmm, yes I noticed that the solicitor acting for Truscott in 2005 stated his client was a “sad, isolated, peculiar man with peculiar habits'' who ''definitely needed help''.

So what about that help? Some 6 years later, after various spells in prison, precious little seems to have changed; Truscott’s back at his same tricks at the same farm terrorising the same family. I think it’s increasingly clear that further spells in prison aren’t really going to do the trick.

Facebook, Jurors and the 'Virtual Veil'

From Guardian.co.uk: 18.11.08:

A female juror was dismissed from a trial after posting details of the case on Facebook and asking friends whether they thought the defendants were guilty.

The woman went against strict rules forbidding jurors from discussing cases with family and friends by posting details of the sexual assault and child abduction trial on the social networking site.

After her actions were discovered, she was removed from the case at Burnley crown court, in Lancashire, and the trial continued with a jury of 11 people.

A Courts Service spokesman said today: "A juror was dismissed from a case on November 18 for discussing a case outside the court."

It’s been quite a while since I’ve posted a Facebook related entry so this one seemed an obvious choice. For what it’s worth, I’ve largely given up with my Facebook-bashing, as I got sick with it falling so invariably on ‘deaf ears’. I get it: the world loves Facebook and only I don’t. Oh well.

The story does, though, highlight interesting behavioural patterns when people are online, particularly when engaged in social networking activities. I think it shows up a serious divide in many people’s brains over regulating their actions in the real world and the online one. Did the juror really think she’d get away with it? Did she think that her ‘online persona’ is so divorced from reality that any actions carried out online would not be attributed to her real ‘human’ person? It’s almost as though some people view their online conduct as being separated from reality by a ‘virtual veil’, which their real, human person can hide behind without fear of being troubled by disagreeable repercussions that flow from the actions of their ‘online person’. You know, something analogous to the 'corporate veil' which derives from the twin pillar characteristics that a company is blessed with: separate legal personality and limited liability. No?! Anyone?! No, my girlfriend wasn’t interested either.

Sidenote: I’ve become more than a little bored with studying the majestic intricacies surrounding the corporate veil and its lifting, piercing or otherwise penetrating for what seems like an eternity in my Company law module. It still amuses me that on the LPC in Business Law and Practice it was merely mentioned in passing with perhaps two sentences dedicated to the topic. On the LL.M, though, we’ve dissected it to absolute death and then some, more or less from the start of term. God, I love academia.

Pre-Easter Update

And I thought vacations were for a bit of downtime when work levels, you know, dropped off a bit. Now the Easter vacation has started proper, though, it seems I’m busier than ever.

In the run-up to the end of term, I had to complete an IT law paper, a Corporate Governance paper, a presentation for Corporate Governance and my dissertation synopsis. This was on top of the preparation required for seminars (though, I’d turned the revs down on that front for the final few weeks). Thankfully, I just about managed to get it all covered, although I had to take a rain check on the two remaining company law lectures. 

I have two IT law papers to complete, yet another one for Corp Gov and then, thank God, that’s it – except for the two exams and dreaded dissertation. On that note, I did opt for a title concerning the regulatory issues plaguing virtual worlds – pretty much exactly as I had intended from last October. In essence, it concerns examining the role criminal law can play. In the last week of term, I also scheduled a second last-minute dissertation meeting with the unit leader who gave my dissertation synopsis a resounding thumbs-up so I can relax somewhat on that front until the exams are over.

So Easter is looking like a busy period for the Michael. I’m hoping to pick up some overtime at work in the next couple of weeks which would bring a much welcome boost to my finances. I’ve also got to help out a former employer with a couple of projects in the next 3 weeks or so and, it’s just dawned on me, prepare for that final company law seminar in the first week back. After next month, I’ll be able to happily report that my tuition fees are fully paid and I don’t intend shelling out for any more courses in the foreseeable future. 

Perhaps most importantly, I also need to find time to get out and buy Quantum of Solace on DVD.

Don’t Shave and Drive

On the way to work this morning, I actually saw a guy with his electric razor looking up to the sky shaving at the wheel.  But even so, it's nothing compared to this:

From the Metro 08/03/10:

"A car crash in Florida is being blamed on the fact that the driver was attempting to shave her pubic hair while at the wheel.

According to reports, Trooper Gary Dunick says that the two-vehicle smash was caused by the fact that the woman was attempting to shave her bikini area, while her former husband held the wheel.

Her car then crashed into the back of a pickup truck.

I realise that people do all kinds of things in cars and act as though nobody can see them.   But this?!?

Couldn't her old hubby have taken over the driving before she started her grooming.  Or couldn’t they have called at a service station?  Was giving her nether-regions the once-over, really that crucial?

And did she get lathered up at the wheel before she started trimming her topiary?  Surely she wasn't dry-shaving down there - far too painful.

And seriously, I hope she didn't slice anything at the moment of impact.  Else that would really have put the lash in whiplash. 

But not to worry:

Two female passengers in the pickup truck were treated for minor injuries following the crash in Cudjoe Key last Tuesday.

So I'm sure there's a personal injury claim in there!

Google Earth helps lead roof thief plot crimes

From The Independent 16/03/09:

“The highly detailed satellite images provided by Google Earth opened a unique window on the world when it was launched in 2005, one that proved all too enticing for roofer Tom Berge; he used the website to hunt down a fortune in scrap metal on the roofs of historic buildings near his home in London.

Berge, 27, stole lead worth £100,000 from schools, churches, museums and other large buildings during a six-month spree that began in September last year. He used the website to identify the lead roofs by their darker colour. He was sentenced to eight months in prison – suspended for two years – after confessing to more than 30 offences.”

This reminds me of that classic Only Fools and Horses episode – you know, with the miraculous weeping statue which turns out to be rain dripping through (caused by Del Boy pilfering the lead from the roof).   Admittedly Google Earth didn’t form part of the storyline but it was back in the 70s, I guess. 

Seemingly innocuous technology has always been, and always will be, put to mischievous uses.  That’s just plain old human nature for you.  There’s not a great deal that Google could do to regulate this either.  Still, I sure there’s somebody out there in the ‘sphere who will be clamouring for Google to pixelate or otherwise obscure the roofs on web-base map services etc etc.  You’ll be pleased to to hear, though, faithful readers, that that somebody isn’t me.  

Flying Pasties – Don’t let them see you naked

Given my Cornish roots, (and clearly innocent mind) I was initially slightly puzzled as to how the use of ‘pasties’ would be of useful application in shielding your modesty whilst going through airport scanners.   After all, hot pastry snacks and underwear, seldom go hand in hand – even in Cornwall.

Anyway, if you’re not up to speed with exactly what a ‘pastie’ is in this context, here’s the deal.

I naturally took the concept of Flying Pasties as a spoof initially.  On closer inspection, clearly it is not.

 

Flying Pasties are rubber pads that you place over your nether regions so that anyone reviewing your image on a full body scanner doesn't see anything that you wouldn't want to expose without first being taken out for dinner.

Flying Pasties aren't stickers or paper cut-outs. They're 2mm thick pieces of rubber that adhere to your skin to cover your breasts and genitalia. According to the manufacturer, when your image appears on the full body scanner monitors, areas of skin covered by the Flying Pasties will not be visible to the security agent.

The pasties come in sets for women including two breast pasties and one bottom and one bottom piece for males.

They are emblazoned with text such as "Private" and "Only my husband sees me naked." The company does offer the option to customize the message your pasties.

Oh goody.  I bet this has been a constant source of amusement for the staff working on the bespoke pasties.  Any good ideas for customised messages? 

But I’m curious about what the Department for Transport make of this. The UK brought in a trial of body scanners in Heathrow and Manchester airports earlier this year, through powers conferred under the Aviation Security Act 1982.

From the current code of practice released by the department for transport:

“If a passenger declines to be scanned that passenger must be refused access to the Restricted Zone, with the result that the passenger will not be able to fly.” 

So does that include a passenger who is happy to be scanned but refuses to remove his or her pasties?  What happens in that situation?  

According to Liberty,
“Passengers are selected for scanning randomly or on the basis of undisclosed criteria. There is no alternative: if a person selected for scanning refuses he or she will not be permitted to board their flight.”

The biggest question, perhaps, is just how these are going to go down with airport security officials? What if a terrorist sought to hide a potent weapon behind their pastie? - (something all gents would no doubt like to lay claim to!!)  Or what about drugs / other contraband?  Could a terrorist hide a sufficient quantity of explosives behind a set of pasties to carry out his or her evil deed? In theory, sniffer dogs should still detect these things without difficulty. At least, one would hope so.

For contraband/explosives carried internally, is there the potential for pasties to be used by criminals as a further means of putting scanners/ sniffer dogs off of the scent?

Yes, savour that image.

Moving swiftly on, I bit the bullet and emailed the Department for Transport about their stance on these products and they kindly answered my email a couple of days ago. They said:

“If as a result of a security scan the security officer is not satisfied that the image enables him or her to make a through [sic] analysis of the potential for threat items located on the body, the passenger may be asked to explain any apparent anomalies in the image.

The security officer may decide that it is necessary to resolve this concern with a detailed physical search.”

“Explain any apparent anomalies”.  So would they be satisfied with, “oh, that’s just my pastie, officer”? 

And what does a detailed physical search’ involve here?   Would the pasties need to be removed?  Like any self-respecting government department, any information released tends to raise more questions than answers. 

Curiously, I’m heading to the states for Christmas next month, so maybe I should order myself a flying pastie and give it a go, naturally posting a review of my experiences on Law Actually afterwards. 

According to the Flying Pasties website, the 2nd generation pasties are currently in production.  Here are the designs: