Criminal law
Cobban and another v Director of Public Prosecutions [2024] EWHC 1908 (Admin), [2024] All ER (D) 131 (Jul)
The Administrative Court dismissed the appellants’ appeal by way of case stated against their convictions of improperly using a public electronic communications network contrary to s 127(1) of the Communications Act 2003 while engaged in private consensual messaging on a WhatsApp group and refused their judicial review applications in relation to their sentence of 12 weeks’ immediate custody for each offence. The appellants had sent messages between serving officers of the Metropolitan Police Service which were held by the district judge at the Magistrates’ Court to be of a ‘grossly offensive’ nature. The court, deciding that Director of Public Prosecutions v Collins [2006] 4 All 2006] 4 All ER 602 had binding authority, held that s 127(1) of the Act may criminalise the consensual exchange of indecent material using a public electronic communications network. On the facts of the present case, no assistance could be gained in determining whether the messages were ‘grossly offensive’ in the eyes of a reasonable member
