In December 1952 a man named Cecil Robins – also known as Robin and described, cryptically, as a ‘fashion supervisor’ – appeared in court in Lisburn, a town on the periphery of Belfast. Robins was charged with ‘acts of gross indecency’ involving a 19-year-old soldier at a house in the town the previous February. That soldier, and another, had already been tried by a military court and convicted of ‘offences of an indecent character’ in May. Robins pleaded guilty and was imprisoned for four months.