# X v United Kingdom

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Timeline 342 MSM activity made illegal 1533 Death penalty introduced for MSM activity 1543 Buggery Act extended to Wales 1828 Offences Against the Person Act 1828 1835 James Pratt and John Smith executed 1861 Death penalty for buggery abolished 1885 Labouchere Amendment introduced 1889 Cleveland Street scandal 1895 Oscar Wilde found guilty of gross indecency 1912 The Cave of the Golden Calf opens 1921 Plans to make lesbian activity illegal defeated 1936 Mark Weston transitions 1952 John Nott-Bower begins crackdown 1954 Pitt-Rivers, Montagu, Wildeblood imprisoned 1954 Alan Turing commits suicide 1957 Wolfenden report released 1967 MSM activity made legal (England & Wales) 1972 First British Gay Pride Rally 1976 Jeremy Thorpe resigns as Liberal leader 1981 MSM activity made legal (Scotland) 1981 First case of AIDS reported in the UK 1982 MSM activity made legal (NI) 1983 Gay men barred from donating blood 1984 Chris Smith elected as first openly gay MP 1987 Operation Spanner begins 1988 Section 28 comes into force 1989 Stonewall UK forms 1994 Age of consent for MSM becomes 18 1997 Angela Eagle becomes first openly lesbian MP 1998 Bolton 7 found guilty 1998 Lord Alli becomes first openly gay Lord 1999 Admiral Duncan bombing 2000 Gay men allowed in HM Armed Forces 2001 Age of consent equalised to 16 2001 MSM activity involving multiple men legal 2002 Same sex couples granted equal rights to adopt 2003 Section 28 repealed 2004 Civil partnerships introduced 2004 Gender Recognition Act 2004 2006 Discrimination made illegal 2008 Equalised access to IVF for lesbian couples 2008 Incitement to homophobic hatred made a crime 2009 Public apology to Alan Turing 2010 Equality Act 2010 2011 Gay men allowed to donate blood (1 yr deferral) 2013 Nikki Sinclaire becomes first openly trans MEP 2013 Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 2014 First same-sex marriages take place 2016 MSM activity not grounds for military discharge 2017 Turing law implemented 2017 Blood donation deferral 3 months (excl. NI) 2019 MPs legislate for gay marriage in NI 2020 Gay marriage legal across UK, incl. NI 2020 Blood donation deferral 3 months (incl. NI) 2021 Blood donation deferral equalised :
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X. v. the United Kingdom was a 1978 case before the European Court of Human Rights, challenging the Sexual Offences Acts 1956 and 1967 in the United Kingdom. The case addressed privacy protections and age of consent laws for homosexuals (application no. 7215/75).

## Facts

In 1974, a 26-year-old male, anonymously identified as 'X' but subsequently identified as Peter Vernon Wells (1947–79), was arrested in the United Kingdom and charged under the Sexual Offences Act 1956 with two counts of buggery committed with two 18-year-old men. X was sentenced two and a half years of imprisonment on the first count and six months on the second count. There was evidence shown that X had 'virtually made a prisoner' of one of the men he had relationship with; however this was contradicted not only by X but also the man he had a relationship with.
The applicant in the case, X, contended that his arrest and imprisonment was a violation of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees the right to respect for private life, and that homosexual relations between consenting adults should not be criminal offences.
X also appealed that The Sexual Offences Act 1956, which provided that sexual relations with a male under the age of 21 constituted an offence, was also in violation of Article 14, which prohibits discrimination. X's claim was based on the fact that the act treated homosexual relations differently from heterosexual relationships, and that it treated male homosexual acts differently from female ones.

## Judgment

The Court ruled unanimously that prosecution and imprisonment of X was not an interference with his right to privacy, because there was an element of force involved in one of the relationships. Therefore, no violation of Article 8 of the ECHR had taken place.
On the issue of the act's age of consent being fixed at 21, the Court ruled eight votes to four that the age of consent laws were not in violation of the human rights convention, because protection of the rights of others was a legitimate aim, and therefore justified. No violation of either Article 8 or Article 14 had taken place.
On the issue of discrimination of homosexuals but not heterosexuals in the act's age of consent provisions, the Court ruled nine votes to two with one abstention that social protection was an "objective and reasonable justification" for the criminal sanctions, and that no violation of either Article 8 or Article 14 had taken place.
On the issue of the act's difference in its treatment of male and female homosexual acts, the Court ruled eleven votes with one abstention that, citing German studies which describe "a specific social danger in the case of masculine homosexuality", and that male homosexuals as having "a clear tendency to proselytise adolescents", the act's aims were justified, and no violation of either Article 8 or Article 14 had taken place.

## Aftermath

The findings of the Court concerning the compatibility of an unequal age of consent were overturned in 2003 by S.L. v. Austria.