Neil Cox was ‘entirely naked’ save from a small bag slung across his shoulder at 6.30am on a footpath known as Middlewood Way. He practises naturism as a lifestyle choice and had chosen to walk in a quiet area where he was unlikely to encounter many people. However, he passed two women and an off-duty detective chief inspector, who arrested him. He was convicted of disorderly or threatening behaviour likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress, contrary to s 5 of the Public Order Act 1986 and fined £800. Cox appealed and the Crown Court referred questions to the High Court.
Cox v Director of Public Prosecutions [2026] EWHC 2437 (Admin) concerned whether the court correctly interpreted the s 5 offence and whether the conviction was a proportionate interference with Cox’s Arts 8 and 10 Convention rights to private and family life and freedom of expression.
Dismissing the appeal last week, Dame Victoria Sharp distinguished the case from Gough v UK (2015) 61 EHRR 8, the ‘naked rambler’ who wished to express his opinion as to the inoffensive nature of the human body and sought public debate on greater acceptance of nudity. ‘The Strasbourg jurisprudence identifies a hierarchy of speech, with political speech at its apex,’ Dame Victoria said.
‘The greater the value of the speech in question, the weightier must be the justification for interference... The converse is equally true.’
Dame Victoria said Cox ‘was not protesting, campaigning or seeking to initiate a public debate. He was... simply taking a walk while waiting for a shop to open... His nudity was the practice of a lifestyle choice rather than the communication of an opinion’.
