A New Zealand court upheld Friday a nudist’s right to bare all during his naked runs, reports The Dominion Post.
Last year, a women called the police when she spotted Andrew Lyall Pointon jogging in only his shoes. Three days later, police caught Pointon running in the buff again and arrested him for offensive behavior.
Pointon was found guilty of offensive behavior last December and his first appeal was dismissed in June, but on Friday Justice Paul Heath of Tauranga High Court upheld Pointon’s second re-hearing.
“If it was [offensive] then God wouldn’t have given us genitals,” Pointon told The Dominion Post.
“It is a win for all libertarians and a setback for all conservatives in the country,” he added.
Pointon’s lawyer Michael Bott told the New Zealand Herald, “What it points to is the growing tolerance in New Zealand of diverse lifestyles and freedom of expression.”
But despite the ruling, Bott said he doesn’t intend to go jogging in his birthday suit anytime soon.
“The last thing you’d want is a melanoma on your bits,” he told the New Zealand Herald.