and Lord Diplock disagreed.
But despite the existence of the
offence, Lord Simon and Lord Kilbrandon quashed the conviction
based on such charge, as there had been a misdirection in relation to
the meaning of “decency” and “outrage” and the element of publicity
required to constitute the offence. On the meaning of “decency” and
“outrage”, Lord Simon said the following in his judgment:
“It should be emphasized that ‘outrage’, like ‘corrupt’, is a very
strong word. ‘Outraging public decency’ goes considerably beyond
offending the susceptibilities of, or even shocking, reasonable people.
Moreover the offence is, in my view, concerned with recognized
minimum standards of decency, which are likely to vary from time to
time. Finally, notwithstanding that ‘public’ in the offence is used in a
locative sense, public decency must be viewed as a whole; and I think
the jury should be invited, where appropriate, to remember that they
live in a plural society, with a tradition of tolerance towards
minorities, and that this atmosphere of toleration is itself part of
public decency.” (at p. 495 C-D)
Although such observation was made in respect of the conspiracy
charge, the same should be applicable in considering the overt act
which is alleged to outrage public decency.
29. In another English Court of Appeal case, R v Ching Choi No.
9805975 Z4 (computer-aided transcript, decision of the English Court
of Appeal on 7 May 1999), the defendant was charged with 6 counts
of outraging public decency for filming a lady while she was
relieving herself in the lavatory.
In determining whether the
defendant’s acts could properly be described as lewd, obscene or
disgusting, Roch LJ held that the defendant’s acts had to be looked at
objectively, applying the standard of “ordinary, right thinking
members of the public”.
Further, according to the Particulars of
Offence in the Charge Sheet, it is the Prosecution case that the
Defendant’s act of posting the Messages was one of a disgusting
12
Select target paragraph3
Connect to a paragraph
Connect to an entity
Disable highlights
Add to table of contents