The Man on the Veranda

Two neighbours in a small Nova Scotia town lived across the street from each other. One collected equipment on his property and ran motors that made loud noises, which drove the other to distraction. On two occasions a year apart, the Accused walked onto the veranda of his own house and shouted obscenities across the street at his neighbour. The substance was that he did not want the man to run his chain saw or his lawn mower, or to keep what he called a 'God-damned junk heap', embellished with a string of epithets that the Supreme Court later described as revealing an impressive command of the obscene vernacular. On the second occasion he finished by saying that if he had a gun he would shoot him. The neighbour complained to the police and was the only Crown witness. There was no evidence that anyone else heard the shouting or that the neighbour's conduct was affected by it in any way. The Crown's position was that the shouting was itself a disturbance, and that the neighbour had plainly been disturbed by it.