© 2025 News On The Block. All rights reserved.
News on the Block is a trading name of Premier Property Media Ltd.
© 2025 News On The Block. All rights reserved.
News on the Block is a trading name of Premier Property Media Ltd.
With the present housing market in a stagnate state, sellers and buyers of property are more prepared to negotiate hard to secure that elusive sale or dream purchase. First time buyers, finding it more difficult than ever before to tiptoe onto the property ladder, are being offered cheap mortgage financing as an inducement to taking the plunge. By contrast, at the top of the ladder, sellers of high value properties are dropping their prices (sometimes by as much as £250,000) in order to generate interest in properties which have all but forgotten what it feels like to be inspected by a buyer. For new build developers desperate to shift sluggish stock, the “Marketing Weekends” are becoming ever more enticing: “Stamp Duty paid – this weekend only!”; “Prize Draw for all viewings today!”; “Join us for Pink Champagne and Pimms…”. As buyers and sellers flirt dangerously to keep the property inventory moving, it seems that anything goes when it comes to purchasing a new pad. Well, almost anything.
The recent and curious Court of Appeal case of R v Price (2003) perhaps represents the boundary limit for property purchase negotiation. The case concerned a female sales manager of an apartment block, who was wearing a pair of ankle boots. David Price, the Defendant, requested a viewing of the largest apartment. Not sure about whether to proceed with an offer, Mr. Price told the sales manager that if he could walk around the apartment carrying her ankle boots it would help him decide. Promptly, Mr. Price knelt down in front of the terrified sales manager who became apprehensive about the intentions of her prospective purchaser. Mr. Price then began to stroke both her legs over her trousers just below the knee with both hands. In a “weird and childlike” manner, he then moved on to stroke her boots, continually begging her to remove them. They came to an agreement that if Mr. Price returned the next day, she would do as he asked. As soon as Mr. Price left, the frantic sales manager locked the doors and called the police.
At his trial for indecent assault, Mr. Price’s defence was that his act, while an assault, was not an indecent one. He admitted touching the sales manager’s boots but denied touching her legs. However, he had voluntarily told police in interview that touching women’s shoes made him happy. (Presumably, so happy he could not resist making offers for apartments?). It was this admission taken together with the kinkiness of the circumstances of the act that influenced the jury. Section 14 (1) of the Sexual Offences Act 1956 clearly states that it is an offence to make an indecent assault on a woman. Case law has subsequently confirmed that for an assault to be ‘indecent’ there must be (i) an affront to the modesty of the ordinary observer and (ii) an indecent intention in committing the act. Thus, with modesty suitably affronted and convinced of his indecent intention, the jury decided that Price had committed an indecent assault and he was subsequently convicted of his crime. Despite the seemingly unusual facts, this is not the first time the English courts have had to consider ‘foot fetishists’. The case also raises the important issue of what makes an assault indecent.
In the other famous foot fetish case of R v George [1956] Crim LR 52, the Defendant similarly derived a perverted sexual gratification from fondling female feet. George was prosecuted for removing a shoe from a girl’s foot on several occasions to satisfy his kinky fetish. However, in contrast to Price, the assault in George was found not to be indecent. Mr. Justice Streatfield ruled that just because there was an indecent motive in George’s mind, that did not make the assault indecent. There needed to be obvious, objective circumstances of indecency for an indecent assault to be committed. The decision in George was favourably considered by the House of Lords in the case of R v Court [1989] AC 28. Their Lordships agreed with the decision of Mr. Justice Streatfield and further considered the example posed by Professor Granville Williams of a girl under the age of 16 who does not consent to a medical examination by a midwife or doctor. Agreeing with Professor Williams, their Lordships suggested that providing the examination is for genuine medical purposes it does not amount to an indecent assault just because the medical practitioner had some secret indecent motive or derived some secret sexual gratification from the act. There must be some obvious indecency for an assault to become indecent. The facts of Court were just as perverse as George and Price. Court, a 26 year old shop assistant, pulled a 12-year-old girl visitor to the shop across his knees and smacked her with his hand 12 times on her bottom outside her shorts for no apparent reason. When asked by the police why he had done so he said that he had a ‘buttock fetish’. The House of Lords confirmed his conviction for indecent assault, explaining that his ‘buttock fetish’ admission proved that he intended to commit not just an assault, but an indecent assault. Any evidence explaining the Defendant’s conduct, whether an admission by him or otherwise, was admissible to establish whether he intended to commit an indecent assault.
So, when it came to examining the case of Mr. Price the Court of Appeal Criminal Division had little trouble in reaching a decision which supported the trial judge. The decision in George was distinguished, on the basis that in Price the foot fetishist made his intentions obvious whereas in George they were kept secret, and the law in Court was applied. The Court of Appeal decided that stroking the sales manager’s legs below the knee was capable of amounting to an indecent assault. Price had admitted to police that doing so ‘made him happy’ and his actions were obviously motivated by a kinky fetish. This escalated the crime from being a mere assault, to being an indecent one. In this way, their Lordships confirmed that an indecent assault was not a condition precedent to making an offer to purchase an apartment, but merely a guarantee to a stay at Her Majesty’s pleasure.
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