Bare-faced cheek!

As police warn sunbathing naked in your garden may be illegal, in the interests of civic harmony we track down the women who love going au naturel and hear what they (and their neighbours) really think

CONSIDERATE neighbours always inform those who live next door when they are throwing a party or lighting a bonfire — it’s just good manners. Yet now it seems there is something else we should bear in mind if we want to keep the Joneses happy — and stay on the right side of the law.

Last week, Surrey police took the unusual step of issuing a warning about sunbathing naked in the garden: you had better clear it with the neighbours first.

Police are duty-bound to investigate an allegation of ‘indecent exposure’ or ‘outraging public decency’, and in the recent hot weather, sunbathers keen to avoid tan lines could unwittingly be breaking the law.

‘If you want to wander around your garden naked and you are overlooked by neighbours, then you have to be careful — an Englishman’s home is not quite his castle and your garden is not exempt from the law,’ Surrey police tweeted.

‘In an ideal world, your relationship with your neighbours would be such that they would not object to you gardening in the buff and they would never dream of calling the police.

‘You will have to decide whether your desire to be naked in your garden is more important to you than being on friendly terms with those around you.’

But who does sunbathe naked? And what do the neighbours think? We spoke to four women — and their (very understanding) neighbours.