R v Rimmington; R v Goldstein [2005] UKHL 63

Two men were convicted of public nuisance for separate acts targeting individuals (racist mailings; a hoax anthrax letter). The House of Lords quashed the convictions, ruling that public nuisance requires a common injury to a community, not just an aggregation of separate wrongs.

Facts

The House of Lords heard two conjoined appeals concerning the scope of the common law offence of public nuisance. The facts of the individual cases were distinct.

R v Rimmington

Between 1992 and 2001, Mr Anthony Rimmington sent a vast quantity of racially offensive and abusive material by post to numerous, unconnected individuals across the country. He sent at least 800 packages to 200 recipients. He was charged with and convicted of causing a public nuisance.

R v Goldstein

Mr Joshua Goldstein sent an envelope to a friend containing a small amount of salt and a note that read, ‘Choke on it you c…’. This was intended as a joke, but it arrived at the recipient’s office shortly after the 2001 anthrax attacks in the United States. It caused a security alert and evacuation. He was charged with and convicted of causing a public nuisance.

Issues

The central legal issue for the House of Lords was whether the common law offence of causing a public nuisance could be committed by conduct directed at a series of separate individuals, rather than at the public or a section of the public as a whole. A secondary issue was whether it was appropriate to prosecute for this residual common law offence when the conduct in question was covered by specific statutory offences (such as the Malicious Communications Act 1988 or the Postal Services Act 2000).

Judgment

The House of Lords, in a leading judgment delivered by Lord Bingham of Cornhill, unanimously allowed both appeals and quashed the convictions. The court undertook a detailed analysis of the history and nature of the public nuisance offence.

Lord Bingham clarified the essential distinction between public and private nuisance, stating that the former affected the community, while the latter affected an individual. He stressed that a public nuisance requires an element of ‘common injury’.

The first is that a public nuisance is a crime, whereas a private nuisance is a tort only. The second is that, as the name implies, a public nuisance is one which materially affects the reasonable comfort and convenience of life of a class of Her Majesty’s subjects who come within the sphere or neighbourhood of its operation; the question whether the number of persons affected is sufficient to constitute a class is a question of fact in every case. It is not necessary to prove that every member of the class has been injuriously affected; it is sufficient to show that a representative cross-section of the class has been so affected.

The Court rejected the prosecution’s argument that a series of private nuisances could, if numerous enough, accumulate to become one public nuisance. Lord Bingham concluded that the authorities did not support this proposition. The essence of the crime is a single act or state of affairs that affects a community, not multiple separate acts harming individuals.

But in my opinion an offence of public nuisance is not, and should not in the modern world be, a convenient receptacle for miscellaneous and usually comparatively minor offences which are thought to merit prosecution but do not fit tidily into any other pigeon-hole.

Furthermore, Lord Bingham strongly endorsed the principle that where Parliament has enacted a specific statutory offence to cover particular conduct, prosecutors should rely on that statute rather than a vague and uncertain common law offence. This upholds the principles of legal certainty and non-retroactivity in the criminal law.

Conduct of a defendant, however reprehensible, should not be punished under the residual common law offence of public nuisance if the conduct is the subject of a statutory prohibition which, for one reason or another, is not relied on by the prosecutor… To permit a conviction of causing a public nuisance in such a case would be to permit an element of retrospection, which is objectionable, and would contradict the principle of maximum certainty which should inform the criminal law.

Implications

The decision significantly narrowed the scope of the common law offence of public nuisance. It established that the offence cannot be used to prosecute conduct that consists of a series of acts directed at separate individuals, even if the number of individuals is large. The conduct must have a ‘common’ element and affect a ‘class’ of the public. The ruling also serves as an important modern authority on the principle of legality, reinforcing the view that citizens should not be penalised under broad, archaic common law offences when specific statutory provisions exist. This promotes legal certainty and restrains the judicial creation or expansion of criminal law.

Verdict: The appeals of both Mr Rimmington and Mr Goldstein were allowed, and their convictions for public nuisance were quashed.

Source: R v Rimmington; R v Goldstein [2005] UKHL 63