A man filmed having sex on the Ferris wheel at Download Festival in June has pleaded guilty to outraging public decency and been ordered to pay £197.
Innes Miller, 33, of Glastonbury Close in Edwalton, Nottinghamshire, entered the plea at Leicester Magistrates’ Court on Thursday, September 10. He was fined £80 and ordered to pay £85 in court costs and a £32 victim surcharge.
The incident took place at Donington Park on Saturday, June 13, the second day of the festival. Footage taken by other attendees circulated widely online afterwards, which is how police identified those involved.
Prosecutor Sally Bedford told the court that the complaint came from a woman who had boarded the ride with her 10-year-old son and saw what was happening in another pod. Families were picnicking nearby, and a number of festivalgoers watched, cheered and filmed.
“[The witness] said she was mortified,” Bedford said (as reported by The Nottingham Post). “She said her son was in shock and since the incident, her son’s behaviour has changed.”
Miller gave a no-comment interview when first questioned by police. The court heard he only became aware of the footage when his employer called him. His solicitor, Saeel Hussain, said there “was no sinister intent to outrage public decency”, that his client had been “under the influence of alcohol”, and that he found out about the video when “his boss rang him to tell him, ‘you’re all over the internet'”.
“That in itself is punishment enough for what happened that day,” Hussain said. “He’s thoroughly ashamed and embarrassed.”
The chair of the bench, Anne Cowan, told Miller that his “going viral on various platforms” had “nothing to do with the courts” before handing down the penalty.
Miller, who is studying civil engineering at Nottingham College, was subject to a community order for a drug-driving offence at the time of the festival.
The woman involved, who had met Miller earlier that day, was dealt with outside the court system. Police said she was apologetic and admitted the offence immediately when contacted, and she received an out-of-court disposal rather than a charge. She has not been named.
Outraging public decency is a common law offence in England and Wales. It requires that the act be of a lewd character and that it take place somewhere at least two people were present and capable of seeing it, whether or not they actually did. Public sex is not in itself automatically a criminal offence in the UK, which is why the charge turns on where it happened and who could see.
Leicestershire Police opened an investigation within days of the festival, saying at the time that officers were aware of a video circulating on social media, were in contact with the organisers and were working to identify the people involved.
Download has run at Donington Park since 2003 and draws around 80,000 people a year. The 2026 edition took place from June 12 to 14 and was headlined by Limp Bizkit, Guns N’ Roses and Linkin Park.
