Facts
In 1974, a 26-year-old male, anonymously identified as 'X' but subsequently identified as Peter Vernon Wells (1947–79), was arrested in the United Kingdom and charged under The Sexual Offences Act 1967 with two offences of buggery committed with two 18-year-old men. X was sentenced two and a half years of imprisonment on the first count and six months on the second count. There was evidence shown that X had 'virtually made a prisoner' of one of the men he had relationship with; however this was contradicted not only by X but also the man he had a relationship with.X v. United Kingdom, 7215/75 paragraph 31 The applicant in the case, X, contended that his arrest and imprisonment was a violation of Article 8 of theJudgment
The Court ruled unanimously that prosecution and imprisonment of X was not an interference with his right to privacy, because there was an element of force involved in one of the relationships. Therefore, no violation of Article 8 of the ECHR had taken place. On the issue of the Act's age of consent being fixed at 21, the Court ruled eight votes to four that the age of consent laws were not in violation of the human rights convention, because protection of the rights of others was a legitimate aim, and therefore justified. No violation of either Article 8 or Article 14 had taken place. On the issue of discrimination of homosexuals but not heterosexuals in the Act's age of consent provisions, the Court ruled nine votes to two with one abstention that social protection was an "objective and reasonable justification" for the criminal sanctions, and that no violation of either Article 8 or Article 14 had taken place. On the issue of the Act's difference in its treatment of male and female homosexual acts, the Court ruled eleven votes with one abstention that, citing German studies which describe "a specific social danger in the case of masculine homosexuality", and that male homosexuals as having "a clear tendency to proselytise adolescents", the Act's aims were justified, and no violation of either Article 8 or Article 14 had taken place.See also
* Gay rights in the United Kingdom * List of LGBT-related ECHR casesReferences
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