Breach of the peace? Or invasion of privacy?

The Daily Record carried a funny, yet rather sad tale last week of a 51-year-old Ayr man who pleaded guilty to a charge of sexually aggravated breach of the peace after he was found apparently trying to have sex with a bicycle in his hostel room.

Daily Record: Man Caught Trying To Have Sex With Bicycle

It seems two cleaners used a master key to enter his room after they’d knocked repeatedly but received no reply, and found him naked from the waist down, holding the bicycle between his legs and moving his hips back and forth.

The man initially claimed it was a misunderstanding and that he had had too much to drink, but pleaded guilty at a subsequent hearing at the Ayr Sheriff Court. Sentencing him to three years’ probation, the Sheriff quipped that it was the first time he’d come across a case of a cycle-sexualist.

Funny? Perhaps at first, but not really when you think about it. After all, the man was behind a locked door, not in the middle of a busy street, so he could hardly be said to be on public display. Small wonder that people on blogs and discussion fora around Scotland are critical of the sentence, which also involved putting the man on the Sex Offenders’ Register for three years.