Part 10: Communications offences False and threatening communications offences Section 179: False communications offence
This section creates a criminal offence for the sending of false communications that meet the threshold of the offence. A person is guilty of the offence if, without reasonable excuse, they send a message conveying information that they know to be false, and at the time of sending it they intend the message to cause non-trivial psychological or physical harm to a likely audience - i.e. someone who could reasonably be foreseen to encounter the message or its content.
	The prosecution must prove that the sender lacked a reasonable excuse for sending the message.
	Subsection 5(a) sets out penalties for the false communications offence in England and Wales, and 5(b) sets out the penalties for the false communications offence in Northern Ireland. Subsection (6) sets out the definition of ‘maximum term for summary offences’ as referenced in subsection (5).
	This offence replaces the offence in section 1(a)(iii) of the Malicious Communications Act 1988 and (for England and Wales and Northern Ireland) the offence in section 127(2)(a) and (b) of the Communications Act 2003. The relevant repeals are made by section 189 of the Act.