Ankerson, R v

For the offence of threatening to destroy or damage property, the required fear is fear of a real possibility that the threat may be carried out. It does not require a belief that the threat will definitely be carried out. The defendant must intend to create genuine fear in the listener, but a merely fanciful risk cannot produce the requisite fear.

A jury direction may be imperfectly expressed without making a conviction unsafe where, read as a whole, it accurately conveys that distinction. Judges should ordinarily use the statutory language, which is sufficiently clear for a jury.

The appellant was convicted in the Crown Court at Reading of threatening to destroy or damage property after telling social workers that he would burn down the home of his estranged partner, whether or not his children were inside. The social workers regarded the threat as real and contacted the police.

He denied making a threat to burn down the house and maintained that he had threatened only suicide. The jury was entitled to reject that account. On appeal, the sole issue was whether the Recorder misdirected the jury on the intention required by the offence by referring to fear that the threat might, rather than would, be carried out.

1. Appeal dismissed. The court held that the conviction was safe. Although parts of the summing-up were unclear, there was no material misdirection.

2. The offence has three elements, as set out in R v Cakmak [2002] EWCA Crim 500. There must be words or conduct which objectively constitute a threat; objectively, a threat to damage property; and an intention that the person hearing it should fear that it will be carried out.

3. The critical statutory word is fear. Fear that an event will happen is not a belief that it definitely will happen. It is anxiety about the real possibility that it may happen. Accordingly, it is enough that the defendant intends an objective listener to experience genuine fear that the threat might be carried out. The risk must not be merely fanciful.

4. The judge's references to a threat which “might” be carried out did not lower the mens rea threshold. They conveyed that the listener need not be certain of execution of the threat. In the circumstances, that was consistent with the requirement under the Criminal Damage Act that the defendant intend the listener to fear the threat would be carried out.

5. The court nevertheless advised judges in future to use the statutory wording without further elaboration. Those ordinary English words would be readily understood by a jury.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): dismissed the appellant's appeal against conviction and held that the jury direction did not render the verdict unsafe.
• Crown Court at Reading: convicted the appellant on 25 June 2014; the Recorder later imposed a community order, restraining order, prosecution-costs order and victim surcharge.