Man Alive, Season 4., Episode 24. Manx Alive

 It is from the documentary TV Series called Man Alive, Season 4., Episode 24. Manx Alive (United Kingdom 1970) M/the back of the chair (he could have put at least some kind of mannequin there), a demonstration of caning with bound birch twigs, position of standing. This clip deals with the physical punishments that were administered on the Isle of Man until 1978 to male delinquents and boys. The corporal punishment demonstration serves as a video presentation of how judicial corporal punishment was administered on the Isle of Man until 1978. There is a debate about corporal punishment, in which various opinions are expressed, 1. Speaker of the House of Keys defends birching as realistic and necessary to control bad behaviour in a small, tight-knit community, 2. A local fisherman birched five times as a boy, says it terrified children beforehand but could become a badge of honour in gangs, 3. A magistrate insists he only orders it for violence (14 times in 17 years) and sees himself as simply applying existing law, 4. Next man calls it barbaric and primitive, ineffective at reform, and misused – in the previous 9 years 36 children were birched, only 3 for actual bodily harm, the rest for theft, 5. The former colonial policeman tells outsiders to mind their own business and blames Britain’s permissive society for rising crime, 6. The immediate trigger for the renewed controversy: a boy sentenced to birching after attempting suicide by poison. Local female journalist organised a petition demanding an inquiry and insisting every child sentenced must be told of their right to appeal. The tactic that had virtually ended birching in the island. 

On the Isle of Man, judicial birching until the 1970s was carried out exclusively on the bare buttocks. 

Boys under 14 years: originally on bare ass; from 1960 they switched to a lighter punishment with the cane over trousers, but even this was exceptional.  

Juveniles aged 14–21 (after 1960): always on the bare bums, using the so-called Manx birch – a bundle of 4–5 hazel twigs approximately 90 cm long. The punishment was administered by a police officer at the police statition or in prison; a boy was bent over a table or a special frame (birching pony or birch block). 

This form was considered particularly humiliating, which was the main reason why, in 1978, the European Court of Human Rights in the case of Tyrer v. United Kingdom ruled that birching on the Isle of Man violated Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights (prohibition of inhuman and degrading treatment). The very fact that it was carried out on the naked posterior and often several weeks to a month after sentencing was a key argument of the court. 

After 1978, there was brief discussion of a mitigated version over clothing, but it never happened – the practice was completely abolished. English language and subtitles https://ok.ru/video/10132431178427 and https://vkvideo.ru/video-229942838_456239535?list=ln-KECirvtRvFphgEFSxS