Naked rambler Stephen Gough has been warned he faces spending the rest of his life in prison if he continues to to wear clothes in public.

The former Royal Marine, a veteran of two “boots-only” hikes from Land’s End to John O’Groats, has spent most of the last four years in solitary confinement in Scottish jails after stripping off on a flight to Edinburgh. Since then he has declined to wear prison uniform or to appear clothed in court resulting in further custodial sentences for contempt.

This week he was found guilty of causing a breach of the peace following his arrest as he left Perth prison in December where he had just finished serving a 12-month sentence for the same offence. On that and a previous occasion police have been waiting to re-arrest him at the prison gates. Source: Jonathan Brown, The Independent.

Personally I’ve no wish to meet Stephen Gough the naked rambler, however I’d rather take the risk than see the state wasting ever increasing sums of money on continually imprisoning him, his legal aid fees alone are estimated to amount to
500,000 which does seem steep – perhaps that includes the cost of imprisonment – but whatever the figure it seems a vast waste of money to prevent scenes like this.

From left to right - Stephen Gough, his girlfriend Melanie Roberts and friend Jeffrey Woodhouse