Conspiracy to corrupt public morals and the ‘unlawful’ status of homosexuality in Britain after 1967

Cocks, Harry

Abstract

The common law offence of conspiracy to corrupt public morals has a long though controversial history in English law. It was a charge mainly employed against obscenity, procuring prostitution, keeping a disorderly house, public indecency and public mischief. These could be interpreted by the courts as facets of a single offence known as conspiracy to corrupt public morals. The charge was used intermittently in the twentieth century, mainly against the arrangement of prostitution and ‘disorderly houses’ used by homosexual men. It was applied again in 1960 in the Ladies Directory case and was subsequently used against gay men who advertised for friends and partners in the underground magazine International Times (IT). The prosecution of IT was based on the legal principle that certain forms of ‘outrageously immoral’ conduct were in themselves corrupting of public morals, whether such conduct was legal or not. This principle placed male homosexuality in the legal category of ‘unlawful’ or ‘wrongful’ acts. In that sense, even after the decriminalization of homosexuality between men in 1967, it still had an uncertain legal status. Conspiracy to corrupt public morals cast a shadow over early attempts to create a gay civil society that was partly based on magazines and personal advertising. For conservative critics of the 1967 Act, conspiracy charges had the useful effect of curtailing public expressions of homosexuality.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Feb 5, 2016
• Online Publication Date: Jun 13, 2016
• Publication Date: 2016-08
• Deposit Date: Aug 16, 2017
• Print ISSN: 0307-1022
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis (Routledge)
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 41
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 267-284
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/03071022.2016.1180899
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1110230
• Publisher URL: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03071022.2016.1180899