Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885
From LGBT Archive
Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885 was an Act of Parliament, also known as the Labouchere Amendment. Section 11 of the Act made gross indecency a crime. Gross indecency was not defined, it was thought immoral to actually specify in law what they meant, but any act of “gross indecency” between men, in public or private, became a crime. In practice, the law was used broadly to prosecute male homosexuals where actual sodomy could not be proven.
Oscar Wilde and Alan Turing were both convicted of gross indecency, Wilde in 1895 was given two years hard labour, and Turing in 1952, his punishment was chemical castration, which probably led to his suicide.
It was repealed by the Sexual Offences Act 1967, which decriminalised homosexual behaviour.
