Against the Law Page #4

If you're born a sexual invert you

will always have

a burden on your soul.

If there was any way of getting

rid of it

I should only be too pleased

because it has been a handicap to me

and led to nothing but loneliness

and unhappiness.

I have no further questions.

Witness is dismissed.

To the charge of buggery,

do you find

the defendants guilty or not guilty?

Guilty.

To the charge of gross indecency,

do you find the defendants

guilty or not guilty?

Guilty.

To the charge of conspiracy to

incite male persons to commit

gross indecency, do you find

the defendants guilty or not guilty?

Guilty.

To the charge of procuring male

persons for acts of gross indecency,

do you find

the defendants guilty or not guilty?

SPEECH FADES:

NEWS REPORT:
The Montagu trial

ended today

with jail terms for all three

accused.

Mr Justice Ormerod passed

sentences of 12 months'

imprisonment on Lord Montagu,

and 18 months each on Michael

Pitt-Rivers and Peter Wildeblood.

I'd read all about it

in the newspapers

and I thought,

"Good God, it's awful."

They were determined to get

verdicts of guilty on the three men

involved - Montagu, Wildeblood

and Michael Pitt-Rivers -

and they were sent to prison

of course, and the two airmen

who testified against them

were given immunity.

I didn't know how Peter Wildeblood,

how he was...

how the judiciary

and the police behaved.

I didn't understand that

and when...

I mean, when I read it,

I was filled with terror.

This is the kind of stuff that was

reality, it was real,

this is what happened to you

if you were gay.

It was pretty heavy duty, erm,

I don't know how it didn't

deter me completely and, of course,

it did deter lots of people.

There were lots of very unhappy

gay people

really trying hard to be straight.

Gradually, people were talking.

Whereas this had been a taboo,

now it was a taboo that was

being discussed.

That gave me an edge of hope,

when I didn't have very much of that

around me.

DOOR SLAMS SHU KNOCKING

Wildeblood!

INDISTINCT CHATTER

I seen you come in.

You look better in real life than

you did in the papers.

Oh...

Thank you.

It looked like you was dead,

or something.

How's your porridge going?

It's, er, OK, it's going.

Yours?

All right.

Two more years.

That RAF lad stitched you up proper,

didn't he?

Not on, what he did to you.

Form up!

Be seeing you.

Be seeing you.

8505, Wildeblood, sir.

Wildeblood, yes.

Have you given any thought to

what you might do

when you've finished your sentence?

I plan to carry on as before, sir.

Well, you'll certainly be returning

to an institution like this

if you do.

I meant I shall go on writing.

I suspect you'll find that rather

harder than you imagine.

Do you know someone called Iris?

Why, yes, sir.

Quite a common name

in your...circles.

Iris is a woman, sir.

Are you willing to undergo medical

treatment for your condition?

Yes, sir.

And you'll see

the psychiatrist in due course.

That will be all.

TYPEWRITER KEYS CLACK

All the things that wants to find

me as a man have evaporated...

..distilled down to a revolting

caricature of homosexual man.

INDISTINCT CHATTER

Hello again.

Hello.

It's rotten how they did you.

There but for the grace of God,

you know.

I'm sorry? It's people who have a

little queer streak of their own

that does the most damage,

if you ask me.

On the plus side, this place is

packed with queers.

Receiving, mostly.

MEN LAUGH:

DOOR SLAMS SHU I arrived there with a couple of

other prisoners, I think.

Er, it really did frighten me.

You had the openly gay people who

didn't seem to care

if anyone knew they were gay.

They flaunted round in groups,

were quite outrageous, effeminate,

girlie names all the time.

On the other hand,

there were the "undercover Marys",

as we liked to refer to them.

Those who had,

for one reason or another,

good reason not to be blatantly gay,

and there was certainly a certain

tension between them.

The governor said,

"We know why you're here, erm...

"..and I want nothing of

a homosexual nature for you

"to try and take because

if you do, you'll be here for ever."

Being homosexual was such

an aberration, terrible,

worse than anything, worse than

a murderer. Much, much worse.

There were times when one thought,

will they ever understand that

there's nothing unnatural, erm,

about us at all?

We're perfectly natural human

beings

with a natural desire for love,

and it increased one's sense

of alienation from society

as a whole.

I mean it just destroyed my...

my...my...my personality, really.

I couldn't let my... I couldn't be

who I was, so I had nothing.

BANGING:

TYPEWRITER KEYS CLATTER

I now know what it is like to

be a criminal.

To know that everything you

do will be misunderstood

or used as evidence against you.

BANGING:

It makes me fearful of my future,

and fear is a terrible emotion.

It's like a black frost,

which blights and stunts all the

other qualities of a man.

Dan, that's really...

Pick it up, then.

Got to keep your strength up.

Pinched it out the garden.

Make your cell feel a bit

more like home.

RETCHING AND COUGHING

KNOCK ON DOOR:

Come in.

Sit down.

Wildeblood, isn't it?

Yes, sir.

Openly homosexual.

Do you attend the orgies?

Orgies?

Yes. In Chelsea and other places?

Male homosexuals gather together

and engage in unnatural practices.

Really?

So I'm told.

I haven't heard of this, sir.

Does not attend the orgies.

You want to be cured? Yes, sir.

Well, there are a number of options.

I understood that glandular

injections or hormone treatment...

We've tried oestrogen injections on

a couple of cases here

but with no great degree of success.

One man underwent physical changes

of a...a somewhat alarming nature.

We use aversion therapy.

How does that...

Electrical aversion.

Electrodes fixed to the wrists,

calves, feet.

You'd be told to fantasise,

watch pictures of men in various

states of undress, receive shocks.

Does it leave...marks?

They fade after a while.

Or chemical aversion -

apomorphine injections - produces

nausea, you'll vomit

then you lie in it,

no cleaning up allowed. Essential

part of the therapy.

For how long?

Two days, sometimes three,

it depends.

I shouldn't be here.

This shouldn't be happening to me.

You broke the law, Wildeblood.

Then the law is wrong.

The two treatments, the kindest one

was that you would do...

you would go to a counsellor,

erm, psychologist.

The, erm, worst one,

the worst option, was that you would

have aversion therapy,

and aversion therapy, um,

was probably

the three worst days of my 67 years

on this Earth as a nurse.

They gave me an injection and I

don't know to this day what it was -

I have been told but I can't

remember now - which made me

feel very queasy and really

started to react with inside me,

and, er, pretty horrendous,

and I said, "Excuse me,

"I think I'm going to be sick."

He said, "That's fine,

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