A bloke who had sex on a Ferris wheel at Download Festival discovered a video of the act had gone viral when his boss rang him up to say “you’re all over the internet”.
Innes Miller, 33, a civil engineering student from Nottinghamshire, was enjoying a three-day stint with mates at the festival near Castle Donington in June this year.
He encountered the woman earlier that Saturday, and they engaged in sexual activity on the Ferris wheel around midday, observed by dozens of people both on the ride and down below. The incident was recorded and widely circulated online, a fact which Miller became aware of when he received a call from his employer.
Prosecutor Sally Bedford stated that Leicestershire Police identified the pair from the uploaded footage and interviewed them both. The woman expressed remorse and was candid about the events, and consequently was not prosecuted.
However, Miller, of Glastonbury Close, Edwalton, Nottinghamshire, declined to comment and was already under a community order for a drug-driving offence at the time of the incident on Saturday, June 13, reports Nottingham Post.
He was charged with outraging public decency, to which he pleaded guilty at Leicester Magistrates’ Court today (Thursday, September 10).
Ms Bedford revealed that the complaint to the police had been lodged by a woman who had been on the ride with her son. Ms Bedford said: “At lunchtime on the Saturday, [the witness] decided to take her young son on the Ferris wheel. Her son, who has autism, looked round and said, ‘Oh my God, what are they doing?’
“She looked and could see the woman standing up but bent over, and her head was hanging to the side, and the man was behind, and they were clearly engaging in sexual intercourse.
Other people with children were having picnics, and a number of people’s attention was drawn to what was going on. [The witness] said she was mortified. She said her son was in shock and since the incident, her son’s behaviour has changed.”
However, Sabeel Hussain, defending Miller, argued that many bystanders found the spectacle amusing and even applauded, suggesting that Miller had already suffered enough humiliation from the viral videos of the act. He told the court: “Most people found it amusing, and a lot of them were clapping.
“You’ve got to balance that distress caused with what everyone else clearly thought was a moment of madness and funny. He was under the influence of alcohol. There was no sinister intent to outrage public decency.
“It ended up with him being viral and all over the national newspapers and TikTok. His boss rang him to tell him, ‘you’re all over the internet’. That in itself is punishment enough for what happened that day. He’s thoroughly ashamed and embarrassed.”
He added that it was a “short-lived” incident with a woman he had met at the festival that morning. Miller, a former lorry driver now studying civil engineering at Nottingham College, was fined for the offence.
Anne Cowan, chair of the bench, informed him: “We’ve been told that you’ve been subject to going viral on various platforms already but that’s nothing to do with the courts.”
He was slapped with an £80 fine and instructed to pay £85 in court costs and a £32 victim surcharge.
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