Operation Spanner

Although same-sex relationships between men were partially decriminalised in England in 1967, persecution did not end. There was still great suspicion of these relationships, which were still seen to be morally wrong, and in the late 1980s a police investigation was launched across the UK to look into same-sex male sadomasochism, which was viewed a great risk to the public.

Sadomasochism, also known as S&M, is the “giving and receiving of pleasure from acts involving the receipt or infliction of pain or humiliation” and can be linked to sexual pleasure. In the 1980s, it was discovered that there was an underground culture of sadomasochism amongst gay men in the UK which was seen as unacceptable, and so the Obscene Publications Squad of the Metropolitan Police were assigned to investigate and make arrests. This became known as Operation Spanner, and it ran across 3 years during which 100 men were questioned by police. Out of these men, 43 were named in an official report, and 16 were taken to court on charges of assault and unlawful wounding.

By this time, attitudes towards homosexuality had worsened in the UK. The year that Operation Spanner was launched, a British Social Attitudes Survey found that 75% of the population believed that homosexual activity was always or mostly wrong. At the Conservative Party Conference the same year, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher warned against children being taught that they had a right to be gay. The following year, Section 28 was introduced which banned local authorities from “promoting” homosexuality. It was in this climate that Operation Spanner operated.

Whilst homosexuality had been partially decriminalised 20 years previously, certain offences were still illegal and in 1989 30% of all convictions for sexual offences in England and Wales related to consensual gay sex. The Obscene Publication Squad would raid video stores to seize horror films and gay pornography and it was during these raids that video material showing consensual sadomasochistic sexual activity amongst men were discovered.

Greater Manchester Police attempted to identify the men in the videos and this investigation widened to include 16 police forces. Those questioned revealed they found each other through adverts in gay magazines, which led to offices of magazines such as Sir, Gay Galaxy and Corporal Contacts being raided. One of the many raids conducted by Operation Spanner was carried out in a home in Welwyn Garden City on 16^th November 1987.

In September 1989, 16 men were charged with over 100 offences. During the trial, it was revealed that these occasions of assault related to consensual, private sadomasochistic sex sessions held across 10 years. One of the defendants was a 42-year-old man from Welwyn Garden City, who faced 6 charges of conspiracy to assault and grievous bodily harm and assault occasioning actual bodily harm on himself and others. The House of Lords ruled that consent was not a legal defence for causing actual bodily harm in Britain, but the cases led to a national debate about how consent was defined and how far the government should intervene in sexual encounters between consenting adults.

Because of the judgement that consent was not a defence, the men pleaded guilty and they were convicted in November 1990. The prosecutor described the defendants’ behaviour as “brute homosexual activity in sinister circumstances, about as far removed as can be imagined from the concept of human love” and these comments were picked up by the British Press, who described the men as torture gangs and perverted. The men were sentenced to between 12 months and 4 ½ years in prison, but 5 of them appealed the sentences in 1992. Whilst the Lord Chief Justice upheld the convictions, he conceded that the men were not aware that their acts were criminal and so reduced their prison sentences to 6 months or less.

In 1993, the 5 defendants appealed again, this time to the House of Lords. Their lawyer argued that the court did not have the right to interfere in the private lives of consenting adults, particularly as no complaint was ever made to the police and no serious or permanent injuries resulted from the activities. Again, the appeal was dismissed by a majority of 3-2. In 1997, 3 of the defendants – including the man from Welwyn Garden City – continued their case in the European Court of Human Rights, arguing that the convictions had violated their right to a private life and to express their sexual personality, which was all guaranteed under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. They were again unsuccessful.

It was not just the convicted men who had been protesting the rulings, however. Straight after the trial groups and MPs spoke out against the sentences, and in 1991 thousands of people marched through London and Manchester to protest the outcome. In 1995, after years of campaigning by various groups, the Law Commission published a consultation paper which proposed the decriminalisation of consensual sadomasochistic acts, apart from those which caused serious disabling injury, but it was never adapted into law. In recent years, growing awareness of sadomasochism through popular culture such as with Fifty Shades of Grey have reopened the debate on consent and harm in sexual activities.