The defendant appealed by case stated against his conviction under section 127 of the 2003 Act. Becoming frustrated with its inefficiency he issued a tweet, which was said to have been a threat: ‘Crap! Robin Hood Airport is closed. You’ve got a week and a bit to get your shit together otherwise I am blowing the airport sky high!!’. Airport staff, discovering it felt there was no credible threat, but passed to the Airport police, who agreed, and passed it to the local police. They arrested him, but still saw the tweet as a foolish comment. The Crown Prosecution Service recommended prosecution, and he was convicted.
Held: The appeal succeeded. As to the findings of the Crown Court: ‘the findings do not address the unbroken pattern of evidence to be derived from the responses of those who read or must have read the message before the South Yorkshire Police investigated it. No weight appears to have been given to the lack of urgency which characterised the approach of the authorities to this problem, while the fact that those responsible for security at the airport decided to report it at all, which was treated as a significant feature, rather overlooked that this represented compliance with their duties rather than their alarmed response to the message. ‘
As to the mental element of the crime created, it being one of basic intent: ‘the mental element of the offence is satisfied if the offender is proved to have intended that the message should be of a menacing character (the most serious form of the offence) or alternatively, if he is proved to have been aware of or to have recognised the risk at the time of sending the message that it may create fear or apprehension in any reasonable member of the public who reads or sees it.’
The argument that the Twitter service did not carry messages over a public telecommunications system had properly been rejected by the judge. This was the first time that the court had addressed asked what was a menacing message within the section.
Lord Judge LCJ said: ‘if the person or persons who receive or read it, or may reasonably be expected to receive, or read it, would brush it aside as a silly joke, or a joke in bad taste, or empty bombastic or ridiculous banter, then it would be a contradiction in terms to describe it as a message of a menacing character. In short, a message which does not create fear or apprehension in those to whom it is communicated, or who may reasonably be expected to see it, falls outside this provision, for the very simple reason that the message lacks menace.’ and ‘The 2003 Act did not create some newly minted interference with the first of President Roosevelt’s essential freedoms – freedom of speech and expression. Satirical, or iconoclastic, or rude comment, the expression of unpopular or unfashionable opinion about serious or trivial matters, banter or humour, even if distasteful to some or painful to those subjected to it should and no doubt will continue at their customary level, quite undiminished by this legislation . . we should perhaps add that for those who have the inclination to use ‘Twitter’ for the purpose, Shakespeare can be quoted unbowdlerised, and with Edgar, at the end of King Lear, they are free to speak not what they ought to say, but what they feel.’
Lord Judge LCJ, Owen, Griffith Williams JJ
[2012] EWHC 2157 (QB)
Bailii
Communications Act 2003 32 127(1) 151
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Director of Public Prosecutions v Collins Admn 23-Jun-2005
The defendant had, over a period of time, telephoned his MP’s office using racially abusive epithets. He was originally charged under the 1984 Act, but then under the 2003 Act. The magistrates found the remarks offensive, but not so grossly . .
Cited – Director of Public Prosecutions v Collins HL 19-Jul-2006
The defendant had made a series of racist and abusive calls to the office of his local MP. The prosecutor appealed a refusal to convict under the 1984 (now the 2003) Act. The defendant had argued that the messages had been offensive, but not grossly . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Crime
Updated: 10 November 2021; Ref: scu.463286
