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Judges rule it is legal to ogle man boobs (but not women's breasts) as they overturn conviction of swimming pool 'peeping Tom'
Last updated at 16:22pm on 16.05.08It is a subject that most men manage to keep under wraps - or at least under their shirts.
But yesterday male breasts, or moobs as they are sometimes known, were right out in the open in one of the highest courts in the land.
Three senior judges grappled with the question of whether male breasts could be regarded as having any sexual allure.
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Jack Nicholson is a proud owner of man boobs - and he doesn't seem to care whether they're ogled or not
The leading legal minds got to grips with the issue after a man who secretly filmed another man's top half at a public swimming pool was convicted of voyeurism.
Care worker Kevin Bassett, 44, was found guilty last year after using a video camera hidden in a plastic bag to take shots of a swimmer.
Yesterday, his conviction was quashed at the Court of Appeal after Lord Justice Hughes, Mr Justice Treacy and Sir Paul Cresswell ruled that a man's bare torso did not count as 'private parts'.
The 2003 Sexual Offences Act specifies that "private parts" must be exposed for voyeurism to have taken place. Only women, it seems, have breasts that can be seen in a sexual light.
Lord Justice Hughes explained: "The intention of Parliament was to mean female breasts and not an exposed male chest.
"The former are still private amongst 21st century bathers, the second is not."
At the original trial at St Albans Crown Court, a bather told how he spotted Mr Bassett as he swam at the Grange Paddock Complex in Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire.
"I noticed a middle-aged male on a bench holding a plastic bag," he said. "I noticed a hole at an angle pointing towards myself and my daughter.
"I had visions of my daughter being on the internet. I said to him: 'Have you got a camera in there?' He said, 'No, no'. I was shaking and shouting."
Mr Bassett, from Spalding, Lincolnshire, later admitted to the pool manager: "I did have a video. It wasn't the little girl.
"It was the man I was interested in."
The practising Christian told the jury he had hidden his homosexuality for many years.
"It has made me ill over the years. I want to be like everyone else," he said.
After telling the court he had since received counselling and support from friends and family, he was given an 18-month community order.
Sentencing him, Judge John Plumstead said: "It is by good grace and good luck that you were not lynched that day."
He was also put on the sex offenders' register for five years and banned from using a camera or recording equipment in public unless it was clearly on display.
The Appeal Court judges ruled that although the trial judge had given the jury detailed directions on the question before they retired, he had failed to fully deal with the issue of the meaning of the term 'breasts'.
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