Legal Case Summary
R v Rimmington; R v Goldstein [2005] UKHL 63; [2006] 2 All ER 257
Nuisance; whether offence at common law; human rights
Facts
Rimmington sent hundreds of letters containing racial offensive material to several people. Goldstein sent some salt and a cheque in repayment of a debt to a friend; he intended the inclusion of salt to be a joke but a post worker mistook it for anthrax. Both were indicted for public nuisance. The defendants appealed.
Issues
In Rimmington’s case, the judge held that public nuisance continued to be an offence at common law and that Rimmington’s conduct amounted to public nuisance. The Court of Appeal upheld the decision and added that the contents of the letters unreasonably interfered with the rights of others. As to Goldstein, the jury was told that they could convict him if they thought he ought to have known of the real risk that his actions could cause nuisance. Goldstein also lost at the Court of Appeal.
Decision/Outcome
The House of Lords allowed the appeals and quashed both convictions. Public nuisance is committed when a person acts in a way not warranted by law or omits to discharge a legal duty, with the effect that the act or omission endangers the life, health, property or comfort of the public or obstructs the exercise of common rights. Many offences causing public nuisance are now covered by statutory provisions and should be prosecuted thus, due to the primacy of statute over common law (unless there is good reason to resort to common law; avoidance of time limits would not normally be good enough). Secondly, private nuisance could not become public nuisance simply because it is one in a series of acts; causing injury to several different people rather than to the community as whole is not public nuisance, regardless of how persistent the actions are. Thirdly, the mens rea for public nuisance is that the defendant knew or ought to have known the consequences of his action or omission. Goldstein never intended the escape of the salt from the envelope nor could he have known that it would happen (it would have destroyed his joke). It is the foreseeability of an unintended escape, and not the foreseeable consequence of salt escaping, that matters.
Updated 20 March 2026
This case summary accurately reflects the decision in R v Rimmington; R v Goldstein [2005] UKHL 63. The legal principles set out remain good law. The House of Lords’ ruling that public nuisance requires an effect on the community as a whole (rather than separate individuals), and its guidance on the primacy of statute over common law prosecution, continue to be cited and applied by the courts.
One development worth noting: the Law Commission had long recommended that public nuisance be placed on a statutory footing, and this was achieved by the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, ss. 78–80, which created a new statutory offence of public nuisance in England and Wales. The statutory offence broadly codifies the common law position as restated in Rimmington, including the requirement that the conduct affects the public or a section of the public, and preserves a similar mens rea standard (the defendant knew or ought to have known that the conduct would be of that nature). The common law offence has been abolished for England and Wales by s. 78(7) of the 2022 Act. Accordingly, the article’s discussion of public nuisance as a common law offence now reflects the historical position only; prosecutions in England and Wales must now proceed under the 2022 Act. The underlying principles discussed in the article remain highly relevant to understanding the statutory offence.
