From 1979 until 1996, Phil Polglaze worked with a criminal defence barrister to produce pictures that could be used in court to prove the innocence of men who were on trial for gross indecency after cottaging.
The term ‘cottaging’ refers to cruising in search of sex, or having casual sex in public toilets. Most often, it’s associated with gay men.
The word comes from the 19th-century use of ‘cottage’ to describe small public toilet blocks in Britain (also dubbed ‘tea-rooms’), which were popular places for a sexual encounter.
The defence team would reconstruct the scene and use camera angles to show whether a witness could have seen the alleged crime or not.
This image is from a case.
In 1990 a Norwegian seaman had been charged over an alleged sexual encounter. It was put to the court that the defendant had entered the toilet at Kingston train station in south-west London and reached his arm under the partition between two cubicles.
On 22 November 1990, working for the seaman’s defence, Polglaze, a barrister, the solicitor and the solicitor’s clerk visited the toilet to reenact the alleged event. The clerk lay on the floor of one cubicle and reached his arm under the dividing wall to the adjoining cubicle. Polglaze took this picture.
The team was keen to show that the Norwegian could never have reached far enough to achieve what he was accused of. In court, the sailor was found not guilty. Polglaze adds, “the humour is that when the defendant left the box, he had the longest arms you have ever seen in your life!”
More here: https://flashbak.com/cottaging-and-bog-jobs-toilet-photos-in-the-defence-of-gay-men-1978-1996-480020/