Remind me not to live in Britain. Ever.
ASBO!
Anti Social Behaviour Order is such a wonderful thing. One lady had (loud) sex with her boyfriend (or possibly a string of lovers. I can't remember the details. Healthy sex life in any case) and her neighbours complained about the loud noises so she got a ASBO saying that she'd go to jail if she had sex.
...I actually wrote a few other examples out of memory but then remembered that these were all gathered on a convenient site so here we go. Starting with the one I just mentioned:
A 48-year-old woman jailed for making too much noise during sex. She was given an order on 17 April forbidding her from making excessive noise but breached it three times in the following 10 days. On 26 April she was remanded in custody until 5 May (April 2009) Appeared in court on 6 May and was remanded in custody. The case was also covered by The Times (May 2009) She claims that her ASBO breaches Article 8 of the Human Rights Act (November 2009) Arrested again (March 2010) Update: Spared jail a second time (June 2010)
Banned from every shop in Denbighshire for ten years (March 2009)
A 45-year-old banned from "making noise, shouting or using swearwords" (February 2009)
The criminalisation of spitting (January 2008)
A dispute between two neighbours ended with this 39-year-old being given an order for singing in her bathroom (July 2007)
Ideal Upholstery - In a rare case of a company being threatened with an order, this furniture factory has been targeted after complaints from local residents. However, environmental services found that noise and pollution levels did not constitute a "statutory nuisance", so an ASBO would be used instead to effectively bypass the law (November 2006)
That last one actually shows WHY these things exist. When the accused does something that isn't illegal (like causes minor amount of noise that does not violate laws or spits on the ground) a judge can simply make an ASBO and then violating that ASBO is an offence that can carry heavy penalty. Laws no longer matter as long as
someone in the community doesn't like you and a judge is willing to make your life in to hell they can make an ASBO that -had it been a law would have been a violation of your rights- forbids you from doing whatever the hell the judge doesn't want you to do.
More:
http://www.statewatch.org/asbo/asbowatch-extreme.htm