Beware of dressing the stag as a sailor

One of the most popular tricks to play on the stag is to dress him up in a rather embarrassing fancy dress costume before parading him around town as part of a ritual humiliation.

However, if this is one of your stag weekend ideas you may want to avoid dressing him as a sailor after an ancient offence was discovered to still be written in the statute book.

Under the Seamen’s and Soldiers’ False Characters Act of 1906 it states that it is an offence for anyone to try and to pass themselves off as a member of the armed forces. In the words of the act, this is the trying to "personate the holder of a certificate of service or discharge."

The maximum penalty is, in theory, a month in prison or a £500 fine.

So there you have it, dressing up as a sailor on a stag weekend has more risks than just the prospect of embarrassing pictures reappearing in the future.