Carlos Miller
Three months after police in the United Kingdom were given the authority to set their own restrictions on public photography, a sheriff in Scotland fined a man for photographing a drunk woman as she threw up outside a pub.
Sheriff Kenneth Hogg fined Sebastian Przygodzki 100 pounds because he claimed it was “exceptionally unchivalrous” to photograph Rebecca Smith as she sat on a curb with her head between her legs.
While it is not clear whether one of the 4.2 million public surveillance cameras throughout Britain caught Smith on video, it is clear that laws against public photography outweigh laws against public drunkenness.
Przygodzki, 28, who moved to Scotland two years ago from Krakow, told police he had spent the day taking photographs of performers at the Edinburgh festival, which was in full swing at the time. When he came across the woman, he considered it “taking a photo of another view of Edinburgh”, said his lawyer, Andy Houston. But Sheriff Kenneth Hogg said the matter “could be best described as exceptionally unchivalrous”. “The lady concerned was entitled to her privacy and not to have a passing stranger take a photograph,” said the sheriff. “I’m going to impose a fine to remind him chivalry is not dead and when somebody is in distress you leave them to it.”
Here in the United States, excessive public drunkenness, whether it is from a man or woman, is sure to be exploited on the Internet, as the following photo found through Google proves.
naked-drunk-woman
