Criminal

Statutory nuisance - 'smoke nuisance' - including smell of smoke when no smoke visibleGriffiths v Pembrokeshire County Council: DC (Kennedy LJ and Butterfield J): 31 March 2000

The defendant was issued with an abatement notice pursuant to s80 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, requiring him to cease causing a 'smoke nuisance' from the burning of animal carcasses on his land.The defendant was convicted of contravening that notice.

The Crown Court upheld the conviction.

The defendant appealed by way of case stated on the grounds that the Crown Court had applied the wrong definition of 'smoke', that the smoke which had passed over his neighbour's property had been too high to cause a nuisance, and that a nuisance arising from smell was not within the concept of 'smoke nuisance' identified in the abatement notice.The defendant in person.

John Bates (instructed by Chief Executive Pembrokeshire County Council, Haverfordwest) for the council.Held, dismissing the appeal, that 'smoke' was defined in s79(7) of the 1990 Act as including soot, ash grit and gritty particles emitted in smoke; that although smoke had a primary dictionary meaning of 'the visible volatile product given off by burning or smouldering substances', in common parlance it included the smell of smoke; and that the Crown Court, having heard evidence that it had been possible to detect the smell when nothing could be seen with the naked eye, had been entitled to accept that evidence and conclude that smoke nuisance had been proved.