 Let's start right at the beginning. Tell me a little bit about your work in the gay community, BDSM community. It started, I suppose, in the late 70s when I was aware that I had an interest in BDSM. I was just getting involved in doing it. I was also part of a collective doing a sort of gay, it's called Gay Left. It was a sort of socialist journal, so I was involved in lots of political discussions, met a lot of people, went to meetings and I realised that Leder and BDSM are very different and I'm not particularly a person into leather. My fetishism in my head is that it's not on my body for the most part and so I thought there needed to be a place where guys, gay men who were into BDSM, who wanted to meet each other, to learn, to pick up techniques could do that. So in 1981 I, with a few friends started SMGays, which is a social and educational group and now in 2019 it's still running. Take us to some of the complications of Operation Spanner here in London in the late 80s. How did you see that entire situation unfold? It came as something of a shock because up until the Spanner case, I don't think any of us had thought that what we were doing was illegal. The whole point was that we were doing it safely, we weren't damaging people, so why was the law interested? So it came as a great shock when these 60 men were prosecuted and convicted of quite minor things. The injuries were not very slight, a few red marks, maybe a bit of temporary piercing or play piercing, I'm not sure that went on in the Spanner case, but that level of sort of minor injury that you wouldn't see the next day probably and that was considered to be illegal. And we said, what do we do? Do we shut down? Do we say it's not safe to hold these meetings? Or do we actually double our efforts? And we said, we're going to stand up for this. We're going to be out and proud about our SM interests and our activities. Now, we will give people lots of advice legally about what the law says and we'll give people advice about how not to get arrested, but we're not going to say you shouldn't do it, not the way of advocating that people break the law, but we're recognizing that people need to be aware of the law and make their own judgment. And I think that was the first year that SMGAs actually had its own banners on the Pride March in London. And that was part of our, we're going to go out there out and proud, show our presence and in a sense become a focal point that other people could see that we were being not cowed by it, but standing up to give themselves more courage. We're being like a beacon in that sense. Tell me more about the campaign that you mentioned just a moment ago, filming in a little more on Count Denon Spanner. It was a lot of education, a lot of making people aware that the law was intruding in their private lives and they couldn't just sit back, they had to be aware of it. Over this period, the convictions were being appealed through the court system in the UK and onto Europe and Count Denon Spanner did a lot to raise money to finance those appeals, to do lobbying with MPs and all sorts of bodies to get public opinion on the side of common sense, which is that why these men going to prison, these men having criminal convictions for activities that are not serious, whereas you can go into a boxing ring and cause permanent brain damage and you get a gold belt and medals. So one of the contradictions that we stress a lot was the difference between sporting activities, dangerous activities, you can go skiing and break a leg, you can do all sorts of things and cause yourself disabling injury. And our argument was mainly that it's about sex, gay men's sex particularly. I think if it had been heterosexuals, the sentences might have been less or there might have been no convictions. Now did the monies that you raised and the political action that you attained, do you feel that that was beneficial to the case that it had an impact? Realistically no because the men did, their convictions were upheld, they did go to prison, we took it to the European Court of Human Rights and in fact one of the things we did was three of the original spanner defendants plus five other people put this case to Europe. I was actually one of those farm leave because they wanted people who came from different walks of life, so there were heterosexuals and lesbians, gays, there were men and women, so the idea was to show that it affected a lot of people. And bizarrely the European Court said that they didn't think that we were at risk of prosecution, which didn't make a lot of sense as some people had been prosecuted and convicted but unfortunately that put an end to all the sort of legal process and anytime there's been any suggestion that the law might be changed, that the people who are opposed to it just say well Europe rejected it, there we are. One thing that has been coming up among everyone with whom I have been speaking about Spanner is that many of the people think that this was indicative of its time, that the society at the time created this sort of paranoia about BDSM activities. Do you feel that? I'm not sure that I can put my finger on things and say that. I think that the homophobic aspect was much stronger then in the judiciary and in the press. It's interesting that then compared to now I was just reading a newspaper on the way in where on the Metro the local London newspaper was about this homophobic attack on this guy, full front page, second page, police looking all very positive in a sense about the fact that this shouldn't be happening. Long time ago it would barely have made the newspapers so that side of it has changed. I think that fed into it that these were all, if they'd been respectable married couples maybe not and there were some cases actually that occurred since the original ones that involved heterosexuals where they did things that were far more serious and didn't get convicted. I don't know if you know much about that. There was a case where a man was fisting his wife and he had a signet ring on and she basically bled to death and the judge said it wasn't a foreseeable risk. Do you feel that Spanner has impacted that view today? I think that the I'm not sure about the judiciary, certainly the lawyers are much better informed and on both sides there was a case earlier this year. I was a guy who did a lot heavy heavy sex with his girlfriend and involved a certain amount of punching and things and also sticking things up a vagina and she basically bled to death because they were off their heads on drugs and he just left her there on the point of ambulance he didn't call an ambulance the next morning and he was he was prosecuted and so there's now all this sort of case law about BDSM injuries that lawyers can call on. Interestingly a man used a wire coat hanger heated to brandy's initials on his wife's buttocks no no conviction there one of the Spanner men did something similar with and he got a conviction for it exactly the same activity. Let's take a step back because the Spanner trust has now been referenced a couple of times for the audience who may not know what that is would you please explain the Spanner trust? The Spanner trust is there to campaign and to do what it can to change the current law which says that you cannot consent to an injury that is more than transient or trifling. Now those are vague words open to you know interpretation and what the Spanner trust has done is firstly worked with other people and lawyers to take the case through the appeals court the House of Lords the European Court but also further activities so when in the mid 90s there was a big review of the law on sexual offences we did a lot putting a proposal to be included in this which would have gone against the Spanner ruling by saying that consent during sexual activity is a defense to injuries up to serious harm or something changing that unfortunately and that's quite a lot of work to draft those things are going to be lawyers to help you put those things in. The reply was that it's actually the law of assault that was involved in Spanner because it's the level of injury and in theory the sex is relevant now we know that's not true because because if these men have been engaging as we said in sport or something with more serious injuries you know if I gave you a black eye in a boxing ring that's fine I gave you a black eye as part of sex it's not right it's fairly typically sort of English that when sex comes in the door common sense goes out the window wherever there's an opportunity to have an influence or even just to educate people who are legislating just because they don't come across people who do that very often they're there in a little vacuum and so if there's an opportunity to just make it real for them with some real people some real implements if you want some real experiences that is bound to help in the long run even if it just trickles through slowly. Do you feel that truly if Spanner were to come up today as opposed to 30 years ago do you think it would be fundamentally different? I think that they wouldn't be prosecuted I don't think it would get to court one of the things is that it's there's no benefit in a sense there's no benefit to society by doing that compared to police resources stopping drug or knife crime which are the major issues and one of the things that SM Gays did at its dungeon in the sky 92 or 93 was had a panel with police officers where the police and people were wondering around this event thing there's uniform police officers here and we said it's all right they're out there for a panel they're friends don't worry we did make sure they didn't go to some of the workshops but they were a panel and they basically said this wouldn't you know this would not happen again because our priorities are drugs in clubs knife crime which was less so but you know there's not a priority for us it's a waste of resources and police resources are now much less than they were 30 years ago and they've got much as I said much bigger workload what was the mood of the BDSM community when the Spanner decision was final when the case was lost in Europe the final one it was it was real disappointment it was like we haven't got anywhere to go let's hope that we can get a case that you know that some prosecutions will happen it was it was it was a great disappointment because that that was it's the end of the line I think that had it been the case that there'd been a lot of successful prosecutions during that period then we would have felt like we were being persecuted we were at risk and we had no redress as in my view the number of cases was minimal if any while the law's there it's still open for someone to use it some police officer some who wants to make a name for themselves someone who wants to do something while it's there it's always a threat do you ever think that law is going to be over returned do you think there's any hope I think that the the the bizarre thing this being an old country no law is that the laws of assault date date back to 1861 and it's the 1861 laws that were referenced in Spanner against those and there's been no major overhaul of the laws of assault in this country but that would be the opportunity if they were going to do it then you would actually look at it and say let's change the threshold in that law for what injuries you can consent to let's try and get some sense between what you consent to in sport I want you to consent to in sex because that is a very fundamental difference and one of the things winding back to earlier discussions a fundamental difference is that you consent to someone injuring you seriously for sport but not for sex even though the sex injuries are probably far minor than the sporting and so that sort of thing and the reason why that argument which was used in court in the Spanner appeals was that sex isn't a good reason for injury was it is was sport is because sport is sort of you know manly and worthy and public school and but quite few the judiciary come from or came from then so the point is it it's about prejudice it's about saying sex you know sex if it's not a man and a woman doing it in the missionary position that can't be the excuse for anything I've had the the chance to look at the book sado masochism by Bill Thompson and I've brought this up in some of the other interviews that I've been doing there are two quotes in here that I'd like to present to you for your opinion one of them we'll start with this one they're talking about moral crusaders in order to gain more legislation giving the police more power this cycle of deceit has turned Britain into one of the most sexually policed countries in Europe what are your thoughts on that it is to some extent I'm not sure how old that that quote is I can't remember when he wrote the book I believe it's late 90s yes um it is but I think it is is it's not so much legally because I think we're on a pile in terms of age consent and things I think it's a moralism it's a prudery it's the fact that I can go to the USA and go to these amazing um sm summer camps that take place you find nothing like that in the UK because the tabloid press would actually expose it instantly the camp grounds where it is with the that that has never really gone away and I think Britain is is different from other parts of Europe in this Britain has never got away from the Victorian prudery about sex and BDSM is just you know it's more in your face and it gives them another reason to sort of touch and disapprove so in that sense it's it's policed but I think it's it's policed by morality not by the law to some extent that it's taken a long time for the newspapers to start having pinups and that sort of very misogynistic view that sort of thing another bit here in the book that I would like to bring up with you is this phrase it is impossible to come to any other conclusion than that Lord Templeman found the spanner defendants guilty either because he was completely ignorant of the nature of sm sex which would make him unfit to judge such a case or because he was deliberately manipulating the evidence to justify a personal preference which would also make him unfit to judge in any case what have you to say to that I think in the case in in the in the cases it's very difficult to know as it went up through the courts more evidence was done the problem was that in the original case the men were basically sort of forced to plead guilty in the original lower court and then they feel because other factors they were said well it's against the law you did this because they were in a sense taken off their guard in as the way up the fact that the injuries were very trifling that compared to sport injuries or the facts of the injuries were presented very clearly now if you ignore those facts then clearly the only thing driving you is either prejudice or a very narrow interpretation of the law because English law doesn't say you can cut someone to one inch we're not two it doesn't say you can use a cane but not a flogger it says transient and trifling and things like that they're such vague things that they're open to interpretation and so it would have been open for the judges in the higher courts to say this these injuries are not significant and therefore there's no case to answer the fact they didn't is because their prejudice meant they they were very literal right in their or very narrow in their interpretation of of the law of assault what do you feel will be the legacy of Operation Spanner I think that it will have been it will have enabled a broad range of people to feel confident about their BDSM sexuality to explore it it puts it in the in the public domain at the bizarrely during the early 90s when the appeals were going on you had big billboard adverts of women in in Slutter Hills and men in sort of rubber fetish gear on dog leads crawling behind them advertising lipstick or perfume so BDSM imagery was around but so in that sense the image was allowed but there was no connection with the sexual side of it but you know a bit of titillation but that was it I think the legacy will be that it that it brought BDSM out of out of the closet and that as with any fight some people get hurt very seriously you know emotionally psychologically sometimes physically on the way but battles are like that and that the main aim is to make sure that people don't get hurt in the future because of their sexuality but not unintentionally anyway if you could say anything to the Spanner litigants what would you tell them I would say thank you mr. Derek Cohen thank you very much for participating in Inside Leather History if I could say chat I'm grateful to you you're very welcome