(515)  NAKED RAMBLER INSIDE FOR THE WINTER?

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According to the Naked Rambler website (http://www.nakedwalk.org/), Steve Gough was released from Saughton Prison in Edinburgh on 3 November 2005, having served the sentence for breach of bail conditions that was imposed upon him at Dingwall in October (see No 509).  However, since he once again refused to depart the embrace of the prison cell in clothes, he was immediately re-arrested and remanded in custody.  He was brought before Edinburgh Sheriff Court on 15 November, but refused to comply with Sheriff Gordon Liddle’s order that he appear clothed.  He was thereupon jailed for a further three months, this time for contempt of court.  

With weather forecasters looking forward to the coldest winter in Britain since 1963, Scots Law News wonders if not all is as it seems.  Are police, fiscals and sheriffs really taking pity on Mr Gough; or is he provoking them into taking him in out of the cold for a while?  Reference back to the first naked ramble in 2003 reveals that it was at a very nearly parallel time of the year that Gough was put away for three months in Porterfield at Inverness (see Nos 286, 287, 290, 302).  Upon release then, within a matter of days he had made it to John O’Groats without further interruption.  Time, then, to wish all concerned a merry Christmas and a happier New Year?