R v. Rimmington

Factual and Procedural Background

Two joined appeals concerned the scope of the common-law crime of causing a public nuisance.

• Appellant 1 was indicted at the Central Criminal Court for public nuisance after sending 538 racially abusive or threatening postal packages between 1992 and 2001 to numerous individuals, some of them prominent. Judge [Last Name] rejected a motion to quash; the Court of Appeal dismissed an interlocutory appeal. The House of Lords heard a further appeal before any trial on the facts.
• Appellant 2, a supplier of kosher foods, enclosed a small quantity of salt in an envelope containing a cheque to a friend as a private joke. Salt leaked out in a sorting office during the post-anthrax-scare period, triggering evacuation of about 110 workers, cancellation of the day’s second delivery and police attendance. He was tried before Judge [Last Name] and a jury at the Crown Court, convicted of public nuisance, sentenced to community punishment, compensation and costs; the Court of Appeal dismissed his appeal against conviction.

Legal Issues Presented

1. Whether the common-law offence of public nuisance requires “common injury” to a community and therefore cannot be founded on multiple separate injuries to individuals.
2. Whether, as applied to these appellants, the offence is so uncertain that it offends domestic legality principles and Article 7 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
3. Whether earlier authorities extending public nuisance to serial obscene telephone calls or analogous conduct were correctly decided.
4. What mens rea must be proved: in particular, whether liability arises only if the defendant knew, or ought to have known, that his act would create a public nuisance.

Arguments of the Parties

Appellants’ Arguments

• The offence lacks clear boundaries and, as interpreted in recent cases, violates the principle of legality and Article 7 ECHR.
• “Common injury” means injury to the public as a class; separate harms to individuals cannot be aggregated to satisfy the element.
• Parliament has enacted comprehensive statutory offences (e.g. Malicious Communications Act 1988, Postal Services Act 2000). Prosecutors should use those provisions rather than the unlimited common-law charge.
• (Appellant 2) He neither intended nor could reasonably have foreseen the salt escaping; therefore the requisite mens rea was absent.

Respondent’s Arguments

• The cumulative effect of numerous letters or calls can constitute a public nuisance; the community element is satisfied by widespread interference with individuals’ comfort.
• The offence, as developed, is sufficiently certain; analogous common-law offences have survived scrutiny in Strasbourg.
• Under R v Shorrock the correct mens rea is knowledge or means of knowledge that a nuisance would probably result, a test met on the facts.
• Statutory offences do not extinguish the common-law crime; prosecutors may elect either charge.

Table of Precedents Cited

Court's Reasoning and Analysis

The House emphasised two organising principles:

1. Common injury requirement. A public nuisance must injure a section of the community in their capacity as the public. Aggregating numerous private nuisances (letters or calls affecting different individuals) contradicts that rationale. Earlier decisions such as Norbury and Johnson were therefore wrongly decided and are overruled.
2. Legality and certainty. Courts may not expand common-law crimes in a manner inconsistent with Article 7 ECHR. Incremental development is permissible; wholesale re-definition is not. Extending the offence to serial individual communications would “change the essential constituent elements of the offence to the detriment of the accused.”

On practice, their Lordships observed that Parliament has expressly legislated for most conduct formerly prosecuted as public nuisance. Respect for the “primacy of statute” means prosecutors should charge statutory offences unless a good reason exists to prefer the common law.

Applying those principles:

• Appellant 1: 538 racist mailings, each to an individual, did not constitute a single public nuisance because no community as such was harmed. The indictment therefore disclosed no offence known to law.
• Appellant 2: The temporary evacuation of a sorting office and consequential delivery disruption could, in principle, be a public nuisance; however, liability required proof that the appellant knew, or ought to have known, that such disruption would probably occur. He intended only a private joke and had no reason to foresee escape of salt; the Shorrock mens rea was not satisfied.

Holding and Implications

Appeals ALLOWED.

• For Appellant 1, the indictment for public nuisance is a nullity and must be quashed.
• For Appellant 2, the conviction is quashed.

Implications include:

• Re-affirmation that public nuisance requires demonstrable “common injury” to the public, not a collection of private harms.
• Earlier authorities extending the offence to serial individual communications are overruled.
• Prosecutors are urged to use specific statutory offences where available; resort to the common law will henceforth be “relatively rare.”
• The decision preserves the offence but confines it within predictable, Convention-compliant limits, thereby promoting certainty in criminal law.