| Gay rights activist Stephen Lock says he’s disturbed that the Calgary Police Service considers men masturbating within the confines of a gay bathhouse to be a criminal act.
Lock has been in court for more than a week watching a trial involving four men accused of being keepers of a common bawdyhouse, who were charged after police raided Goliath’s bathhouse in December, 2002. A bawdyhouse is considered to be any public place where prostitution or "acts of indecency" are occurring.
Police officers have testified that charges were laid against staff and customers at Goliath’s bathhouse after undercover cops posing as gay customers saw naked men masturbating. Police officers testified that they originally launched an undercover investigation after a couple of anonymous callers told them that group sex and prostitution were occurring in the bathhouse. However, even after several different sting operations involving undercover cops posing as gay customers, no evidence of either was discovered.
Lock questions why the police still decided to proceed with charges.
"There’s never been any refuting of the fact that Goliath’s is a sexual environment," says Lock. "The fact that men may have been sitting watching porn and fondling themselves or fondling themselves (in their rooms) with the door open, I don’t see that as obscene."
Lock says such behavior is commonplace in bathhouses across North America. "It’s a signal to indicate that that individual is interested in someone approaching him," says Lock.
Crown Prosecutor David Torske said in his opening statement that the fact that Goliath’s was a gay bathhouse was "immaterial" and he said the same charges would have been laid if the customers involved had been male and female.
All the evidence that has been presented at the trial has been in the form of a voir dire (a trial within a trial) to determine whether the evidence obtained by police should be admissible. Defence lawyer John Bascom is arguing that police had insufficient grounds to launch the investigation and therefore it was a violation of his clients’ Charter rights.
"For police officers to commence the investigation there has to be more than what they had here," said Bascom in an interview with Fast Forward. "An investigation based on unsubstantiated tips is not appropriate."
Meanwhile, Crown prosecutor David Torske told the court that if the evidence was declared admissible he would go on to argue that "the nature of sexual activity that occurred on the premises… would run afoul of the community standards of tolerance."
Court heard that the police investigation began in April, 2002 after the vice unit received an anonymous phone call from a man who told vice unit Detective Cameron Brooks that he wasn’t gay but he’d gone to the bathhouse to check it out because he was interested in starting one himself "and he was wondering about the legalities (of a bathhouse)." Brooks said he decided there could be cause for a bawdyhouse investigation because the anonymous caller said rooms were being rented for sex and there were men "lying naked in rooms inviting promiscuous sex."
Brooks testified that he and three other police officers went to the bar portion of Goliath’s on May 7, 2002, but didn’t find any evidence of criminal activity so the investigation was "abandoned."
However, Brooks said the investigation resumed after the vice unit received another anonymous phone call September 20, 2002 who identified himself as a male prostitute. He claimed he’d had sex for money at Goliath’s and he’d also seen group sex taking place there.
Detective Nina Vaughan also testified that she’d told Brooks about a conversation she had with a 16-year-old boy was involved in the sex trade who said he’d taken johns to Goliath’s and seen group sex occurring there. However, the boy died in a car accident last year so he was unable to testify.
Between October and December, Calgary police sent undercover cops into the bathhouse several times to pose as gay customers. Undercover officers testified that on the first two visits they didn’t observe any criminal or "indecent acts occurring."
However, in later visits they saw men masturbating in the open and in one incidence, one man was masturbating himself and another man at the same time.
Charged in the case are Darrell Zakreski, Lonnie Nomeland, Gerald Rider and Peter Jackson.
Torske and Bascom are expected to make their closing arguments in the voir dire on April 8. |
Copyright ©2004 FFWD. All rights reserved.