Passed Problem To Higher Court

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31256, 31 December 1966, Page 2

Passed Problem To Higher Court

< HZ.P. A.-Reuter—Copyright) SALISBURY, (Wiltshire), December 30. If a girl exposed so much of her knees by wearing a mini-skirt a man could not be guilty of indecent assault if he touched them, a solicitor argued in the Salisbury Magistrate’s Court yesterday.

But the Magistrates decided that they would rather pass the problem on to Higher Court Judges. “In view of modern fashions we prefer for another Court to decide on what level an indecent assault begins,” said the chairman of the Bench, Aiderman H. E. Cooke. The’ Magistrate sent for trial at Wiltshire Assizes Cyril Macey, aged 57, of Wilton, near Salisbury, on two charges of indecent assault on two juvenile girls. Both had gone to his house wearing mini-skirts which showed their knees. One of the girls said that Macey had put his hands on the uncovered knees of both the girls. Macey’s solicitor, Mr A. J. Bowker, said: “Apparently it

is perfectly fashionable these days to wear mini-skirts in which the knee is exposed and it is considered perfectly decent Can it be said then that it is indecent to touch the knee?”

Mr J. E. Hatt-Cook, prosecuting, said that in spite of the fact that knees were publicly exposed “it could hardly mean an invitation to touch them.”