The British English term buggery is very close in meaning to the term sodomy, and is often used interchangeably in law and popular speech. It may be, also, a specific common law offence, encompassing both sodomy and bestiality.

In English law, "buggery" was first used in the Buggery Act 1533, while Section 61 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861, entitled "Sodomy and Bestiality", defined punishments for "the abominable Crime of Buggery, committed either with Mankind or with any Animal". The definition of "buggery" was not specified in these or any statute, but rather established by judicial precedent. Over the years the courts have defined buggery as including either:

but not any other form of "unnatural intercourse". The implication being that anal sex with an animal would not constitute buggery. Such a case has not, to date, come before the courts of a common law jurisdiction in any reported decision. However, it seems highly improbable that a person would be exculpated of a crime associated with sex with animals only by reason of the fact that penetration involved the anus rather than the vagina.

Richard Colvin Reid (born August 12, 1973), also known as the Shoe Bomber, is a self-admitted member of al-Qaeda who pled guilty in 2002 in U.S. federal court to eight criminal counts of terrorism stemming from his attempt to destroy a commercial aircraft in-flight by detonating explosives hidden in his shoes. He is currently serving a life sentence without parole in a super maximum security prison in the United States.

Reid was born a British citizen in Bromley, South London, to Leslie Hughes, who was of white English descent, and Colvin Robin Reid, whose father was a Jamaican immigrant of African descent. When Reid was born, his father, a career criminal, was in jail for stealing a car. Reid left school at age 16, becoming a petty crook who was in and out of jail himself, the first time for assaulting an elderly woman. He began writing graffiti under the name Enrol with FRF crew, and ultimately accumulated more than 10 convictions for crimes against persons and property, serving sentences at the Feltham Young Offenders Institution and at the Blundeston Prison. According to his father, Reid became depressed and blamed racism for some of his problems. His father advised him to convert to Islam, telling him that Muslims were more egalitarian and they got better food in prison. The next time Reid was incarcerated (in 1995 for petty theft), he converted.