Do you have the right to make an exhibition of yourself? Will your fourth of July party "glorify terrorism"? Let the New Statesman's legal expert solve your civil liberties dilemmas

I get as overexcited by a sunny day as the next person, but the owner of the café opposite my flat seems to have got heatstroke. Last weekend, he stuck a note through the door, saying that my "exhibitionism" was making his customers ill, telling me to "keep the mouse in the house", and going on about his "family clientele". It's bang out of order. I wear boxers on my balcony, fair enough, but isn't an Englishman's home his castle?

Name and address supplied

Although I appreciate your consternation, the long arm of the law certainly reaches as far as your balcony. Respect for property goes back centuries, but so too does the law's intolerance of indoor crime. That was established as long ago as 1663, when a drunk Sir Charles Sedley urinated on to the heads of a crowd in Covent Garden and found himself convicted of outraging public decency. That he had sprayed them from a private residence was no defence.

Exposing oneself has even fewer loopholes. Since 2003, the crime has been gender-neutral, and there is no longer a requirement that it affect members of the general public at all. Stepping out of the shower in front of a flatmate would itself be sufficient, in principle, to land you in jail for up to two years. That said, flashing requires a positive intention to cause someone else alarm or distress, and given that your only specific intention is to get a tan, you are probably in the clear. If temperatures rise and the notes through the door multiply, your mood could worsen, however. Malevolence could then get the better of you - and it might make sense to play safe, legally speaking, by switching from boxer shorts to a thong.

Though prosecution seems unlikely, I am concerned by your mention of a "family clientele". The law is swift to protect toddlers, particularly during News of the World anti-paedophilia campaigns, and if the café owner were to find a child who had been victimised by your sunbathing, the outlook might darken considerably. The Crown Prosecution Service would be more inclined to prosecute; and if convicted, you'd spend at least five years as a registered sex offender, and risk time inside. Incarcerating the mouse might well be a better option.

As an American expat, I always look forward to my Fourth of July barbecue, but a friend has told me that the shindig could now result in my prosecution for "glorifying terrorism". She has a really dry sense of humour, and I don't know whether to take her seriously. Is she being ironic?

Melissa Kuzmack, St John's Wood

It does indeed sound as though she is being a little mischievous, and a few basic precautions should ensure that the festivities pass without mishap.

Your friend is right to flag up the theoretical risks, in that, as of 13 April this year, it is an offence, punishable by seven years' imprisonment, to publish any statement that "glorifies the commission or preparation (whether in the past, in the future or generally) of acts of terrorism". Expressions of support for the American revolution could certainly fall within that definition, but they would violate the law only if "published". Were you to gather friends by word of mouth, or omit mention of Independence Day from your written invitations, no offence would be committed.

In any event, the Terrorism Act 2006 states that you are liable only if your published statements additionally imply that anyone should "emulate" the violent conduct in question. So long as you make clear - by way of a short speech or prominently placed hoardings, perhaps - that you personally disavow the goals of the Founding Fathers and the military tactics of men such as George Washington, the risks of prosecution will be low.

Sadakat Kadri is a barrister and author of "The Trial: a history from Socrates to O J Simpson" (HarperCollins, 2005). Send your civil liberties and human-rights dilemmas to: Changing the Rules, New Statesman, 52 Grosvenor Gardens, London SW1W 0AU. This column appears fortnightly

*"The rules of the game have changed" Tony Blair, August 2005

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