R v Lowrie [2005] 1 CR App R (S) 95
Public Nuisance – Hoax Calls – Criminal Offence – Sentencing
Facts
The defendant had made a series of repeatedly false calls to the emergency services. This was a consistent form of behaviour for the defendant which had begun when he was just 7 years old. He had been arrested before under the Telecommunications Act 1984 and sentenced to a supervision order. However, after the expiry of this order he continued to make hoax calls of this nature. He was eventually arrested and charged with the common law offense of committing a public nuisance. He had previous convictions for the offence, and pleaded guilty. He was sentenced to 8 years imprisonment. This sentence was appealed.
Issues
Was the defendant guilty of the common law offence of public nuisance? Whether the sentence imposed by the trial judge was manifestly unjust or excessive.
Decision/Outcome
The appeal was dismissed. The defendant had been guilty of public nuisance by virtue of his repeated and false calls, and the defendant had not ceased making these calls even after being convicted. Prison was clearly not a deterrent for the defendant, but the public were threatened as a result of his actions, and even with out-patient psychiatric care and counselling it was considered unlikely that the defendant would not re-offend and so put the public at further risk. The fact that the nuisance occurred indiscriminately and could affect the population at large and place them in danger or discomfort as a result fulfilled the criminal offence of public nuisance, as was seen by the emergency responses that had been conducted in the past as a result of his hoax calls. As the court considered that nothing could be done that would help the defendant and prevent him from re-offending, the appeal had to be dismissed.
Updated 20 March 2026
This case summary remains accurate as a description of the 2005 Court of Appeal decision. However, readers should be aware of a significant subsequent development in the law of public nuisance. The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 (s.78) abolished the common law offence of public nuisance in England and Wales and replaced it with a new statutory offence of public nuisance. The statutory offence, now codified in law, broadly reflects the elements established by the common law (including the requirement that the conduct affect the public or a section of it), but it is now a creature of statute rather than common law. The maximum sentence under the statutory offence is ten years’ imprisonment on indictment. Cases such as R v Lowrie therefore remain relevant to understanding how the courts approached the common law offence and to sentencing principles developed at that time, but practitioners and students should note that any prosecution for equivalent conduct today would be brought under the 2022 Act, not at common law. The article’s description of the offence as a “common law offence” accurately reflects the law as it stood in 2005 but is no longer the current legal position.
