On 6 April 1895, Wilde was arrested for "gross indecency" under Section 11 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885. The penalty if found guilty was two years in jail.

It has conventionally been thought that Wilde's trial and imprisonment was a thoroughly outrageous abuse of state power, itself a crime against a man guilty of nothing more that expressing his own true nature. A totem of a cruel and unjust society intent on crushing a shining artistic light.

Of course, in large part it was. Yet there is far more to the story. And it is all the more interesting and important for it.

The interpretation surrounding Wilde's trial has changed in recent times to reflect our own modern understanding of sexual morality... we of course reject the persecution of Wilde's homosexuality as fundamentally immoral, but lately come to see his story as representing a man persecuted for his nature, yes, but also of a man who abused his own power, education, social standing and wealth to use and discard much younger and vulnerable young men (and boys as young as 16) for his own sexual pleasure. In an age of "Me Too", how do we now regard Oscar Wilde's story?

In this first part, we look at the early years of Oscar Wilde's life and how he came to be arrested and accused of "gross indecency".