GROSS INDECENCY 

Gross:

noun UK (ɡrəʊs) plural old-fashioned - a group of 144.

 

Indecency:

noun UK (ɪn.diː.sən.si) morally offensive behaviour; acts of gross indecency.

 

Gross Indecency Series

Section 11 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885, commonly known as the Labouchere Amendment, made gross indecency a crime in the United Kingdom. The Act contained no definition of "gross indecency", as Victorian morality demurred from precise descriptions of activity held to be immoral. In practice, the law was used broadly to prosecute male homosexuals where actual sodomy (meaning, in this context, anal intercourse) could not be proven. Most famously, Oscar Wilde was convicted under section 11 and sentenced to two years' hard labour, and Alan Turing was convicted under it and sentenced to chemical castration.