Back in May, I discussed a case of neighbours complaining about naked sunbathing.
Down in Wales the neighbours have been getting twitchy over nude sunbathing. Lynett Burgess has just been cleared of indecent exposure by a magistrates court. It seems that she was in the habit of walking about in her own garden while naked.
Remember? Well, Morien Jones, the neighbour who was reported to have filmed Ms Burgess has been in contact and I publish his comments in full below.
Reading this I would agree with you but ………..
The Press / Media outfit the papers bought the story from err…I’ll be kind and say they got it wrong. I’ve already had an apology from the BBC, The Telegraph, The Times, the Daily Mail, The News & Star, The Yorkshire Post, & the Independent.
I am Morien Jones – the neighbour who provided some of the police evidence that took Lynette Burgess to court.
I feel I must correct some facts.
1) The filmed naked incident happened on my property, in front of my house and down the path to the main road and absolutely NOT in Lynette Burgess’ garden as she claims, but the film proves this. This has been widely miss-reported by the National Papers, initially including the BBC Web-site. I’ve since had an apology from the BBC.
2) I DID NOT SAY ” She walked back and fore completely naked – I went to get my video camera to record the incident.” as the BBC reports. The video was taken by the builder and not Mr. Jones (myself) and this is provable, as I can be seen in some shots . Originally we were filming the renovation of the house and she walked passed. We videoed from inside the living room, to protect ourselves against false accusations which she is prone to making. We were very wary of this neighbour who had accused us of “Controlling her water”, and had employed a builder to knock down our coal shed in the first few days of us moving there, and someone had pushed dead animals through our letter-box.
Lots of things had made the situation tense before Lynette’s naked wanderings. We had been advised by the police to keep a record and gather evidence.
3) The naked walk was not an individual incident and adds to a long list of events that are being put together if ever a case for harassment is undertaken.
4) The Crown Prosecution Unit originally took on this case as :- Harassment / Indecent Exposure and later dropped the Harassment charge because Harassment is notoriously difficult to prove. Therefore we were left with just the video incident to talk about, and no other events after. There is a long list of more sinister events to consider.
5) I have no objection to her nude sunbathing on her own property; I draw the line at wandering my property.
6) L.Burgess was arrested last week for Criminal Damage.
It is very easy to create a stereotype and then knock him down, but is it not the responsibility of newspapers, to collect all the facts before printing a story or point of view?
What is particularly disturbing is the “over the neighbour fence” slurs and Lynette Burgess’ much quoted “how they were able to see me, I just don’t know.” – with tiny research it becomes quite obvious how she was seen.
The question in people’s minds should have been “How do you feel about naked, possibly disturbed people strolling through your own property?”
Some facts of this case have been blurred. In my opinion this blurring in the National Press has allowed Lynette Burgess to continue her campaign of harassment on a national scale.
Cheers,
Morien Jones
Thanks for that, Morien and I apologise for any hurt caused.
I also wholeheartedly and unreservedly apologise for comments I made in regard to the story. I was going on the ‘facts’ as they presented themselves on the BBC website. I however had no right even then to judge you and for that I’m very sorry.
Hi again. I didn’t reply to the original blog entry here but on a messageboard. Just thought I’d clarify that.
The problem here seems to be that all of the sources carried the same errors. I looked at the BBC and those on-line papers that carried the story as well as listening to an interview with Lynette Burgess on Jeremy Vine. Nothing was stated that offered a different viewpoint; which is usually the case if you trawl about looking.
L,
I’ve been in the same position, though not in relation to this story – in my case, I didn’t realise that a Scottish political journalist had an identical twin brother.
You published comment based on the material you were able to find after reasonably diligent research, and duplicated an error that was common to it all. You can’t really be faulted for that, and at least Mr. Jones seems like a reasonable chap.