7432764
| Question | Answer |
| MORRIS (1983) | D had switched the price labels of two bottles of drink on the shelf in a supermarket. The House of Lords upheld his conviction for theft as D had appropriated the property as soon as he had changed the prices on the bottles. This was assuming one of the owner’s rights. He did not have to assume all of the owner’s rights. |
| PITHAM AND HELH (1977) | D offered to sell furniture belonging to a person in prison. The Court of Appeal held that the offer to sell was appropriation as D had assumed one of the owner’s rights. It did not matter whether the furniture was removed from the house or not. |
| GOMEZ (1993) | D was the assistant manager of a shop. He persuaded the manager to sell electrical goods to an accomplice and to accept payment by two cheques. The cheques were in fact stolen and had no value. The Court of Appeal quashed the conviction because the manager has consented to the appropriation. However, the House of Lords held than an appropriation can take place even where the owner consents and reinstated the conviction for theft. |
| HINKS (2000) | V was a man with a low IQ. He had gone further than consent and had actually given £60,000 and a TV set to D who claimed to be his carer. The House of Lords upheld her conviction for theft as there was an appropriation. It did not matter that in civil law the gift was valid nor that there was no deception on D’s part. |
| OXFORD v MOSS (1979) | Knowledge of the questions on an examination paper was held not to be property under s.4 (1). |
| TURNER (No.2) (1971) | D left his car at a garage for repairs. D then used a spare key to take the car during the night without paying for the repairs. The Court of Appeal upheld his conviction for theft. The garage was in possession or control of the car at the time D appropriated it. Thus it belonged to another. D was guilty of stealing his own car. |
| WOODMAN (1974) | A company (v) had sold all the scrap metal on a disused site to another company which arranged for it to be removed. Unknown to V a small amount of the scrap metal was left behind. D took the remaining scrap metal. The Court of Appeal upheld his conviction for theft. It was irrelevant that V did not know there was property remaining on their site. It still belonged to them as they were in control of the site and thus the property. |
| DAVIDGE v BUNNETT (1984) | D was guilty of theft when she was given cheques by her flatmates to pay the communal gas bill, but instead used it to buy Christmas presents. Under s.5 (3) there was a legal obligation to deal with the money in a particular way as there was an intention to create legal relations under contract. The money still belonged to her flatmates. |
| HALL (1972) | D was a travel agent who received money from clients for deposits for their holidays. He paid the deposits into the general account for the business. The business collapsed before he paid the money to book the holidays and the clients lost their deposits. The Court of Appeal quashed his conviction for theft as there was no legal obligation to deal with the deposits in a particular way. |
| ATTORNEY-GENERALS REFERENCE (NO 1 of 1983) (1985) | D was a police officer who was overpaid wages due to an accounting error by her employer. She was acquitted of theft at her trial. However, the Court of Appeal held that in future this would amount to theft as D would be under a legal obligation to give the overpayment back. The overpayment would still belong to another even though it was in Ds bank account. |
| SMALL (1987) | D took a car which be believed has been abandoned. It has been left in the same place for two weeks with the keys in the ignition. The Court of Appeal quashed his conviction for theft as he genuinely believed the owner could not be found. He was not dishonest under s.2 (1) (c). D’s belief did not have to be reasonable, so it was immaterial that a reasonable person would have known to contact the DVLA to discover the owner. |
| VELUMYL (1989) | D was a company director who took money from the company’s safe. He said that he was owed money by a friend and he was going to replace the money in the safe when that friend repaid him. The Court of Appeal upheld his conviction for theft as he had the intention to permanently deprive the company of the actual bank notes which he had taken from the safe. It did not matter that he had intended to replace the same value without other banknotes. |
| LLOYD (1985) | D worked in a cinema and removed films for a few hours, enabling others to make pirate copies of them, and the he returned the original films. The Court of Appeal quashed his conviction for theft as his intention was not to return the films in such a changed state that all their goodness, virtue or practical value had gone. |
| EASOM (1971) | D picked up a handbag in a cinema, rummaged through the contents and then replaced the handbag without having taken anything. The Court of Appeal quashed his conviction for theft of the handbag and its contents. Even though he may have had a conditional intention to permanently deprive, this was not sufficient for the crime of theft. |
| CORCORAN v ANDERTON (1980) | One of the Ds hit a woman in the back and tugs at her handbag causing it to fall from her grasp to the ground. She screamed and both Ds ran off empty handed. The Court of Appeal upheld the convictions for robbery. There was a completed theft and force was used in order to steal. This was not attempted robbery. It is now arguable that the appropriation in such a case is complete when D first touches the handbag, for by that conduct he is assuming the right of an owner. |
| DAWSON AND JAMES (1976) | D1 pushed V, causing him to lose his balance which enabled D2 to take his wallet. The Court of Appeal upheld the convictions for robbery. The push was sufficient to be a use of force. ‘Force’ is an ordinary word and it is for the jury to decide id force has been used. |
| P v DPP (2012) | D snatched a cigarette from Ds hand without touching V. The Divisional Court quashed the conviction for robbery as there was no physical contact with V. However, it was accepted that the force could be applied indirectly, for example, when D snatches a bag and V tried to hold on to it, this is a robbery. In applying force to the bag, D is regarded as indirectly applying force to V. |
| HALE (1979) | D1 and D2 entered V’s house and while D1 was upstairs stealing a jewellery box, D2 was downstairs tying up V. on appeal, the Ds argued that, as the appropriation was complete as soon as D1 laid hands on the jewellery box, force had not been used at the time of the stealing, but afterwards when D2 tied up V. The Court of Appeal upheld the convictions for robbery as appropriation can be a continuing act and a jury could conclude that it continued while V was tied up. Thus force was used at the time of stealing. |
| ROBINSON (1977) | D was owed £7 by a woman. He went to ask her for it and a fight developed between D and the woman’s husband. During the fight a £5 note dropped out of the husband’s pocket. D picked it up and kept it. The Court of Appeal quashed the conviction for robbery as one of the elements of theft was missing: D is not dishonest according to s. 2 (1) (a) of the THEFT ACT 1968 where D appropriated the property in the belief that he has in law the right to deprive the other of it. |
| B AND R v DPP (2007) | A 16-year-old boy was stopped by a group of youths and asked for his mobile phone and money. No serious violence was used by the Ds, but V was pushed and his harms were held while he was searched. The Ds took money and a number of other items. V said he did not feel ‘particularly threatened’ or ‘scared’ while this was happening. The Divisional Court upheld the convictions for robbery on the grounds that: i. There was no need for the prosecution to show that V was actually fearful or felt threatened – robbery can be committed if D seeks to put any person in fear of force; ii. There could be an implied threat of force – in this case the surrounding of V by a group of teenagers; iii. In any event, there was also some limited use of force by the Ds pushing V and holding his arms. |
| RYAN (1996) | D was found in the middle of the night wedged in the kitchen window of the home belonging to an elderly man. His head and right arm were inside the property but the rest of his body was outside. The fire brigade had to be called to remove him. The Court of Appeal upheld his conviction of burglary as there was evidence on which the jury could find that D had entered. |
| STEVENS v GOURLEY (1859) | Held that a building must be a structure of considerable size and intended to be fairly permanent. |
| B AND S v LEATHLEY (1979) | B AND S v LEATHLEY (1979) the Ds stole meat from a 25 foot long freezer container. The container had locked doors, had been in the farm yard for over 2 years and as connected to the electricity supply. The Ds were convicted of burglary as the container was a building – it had been resting on railway sleepers rather than wheels, in the same place, for over 2 years. |
| NORFOLK CONSTABULARY v SEEKINGS AND GOULD (1986) | A lorry trailer with wheels, used for over a year as storage by shops, was held not to be a building, even though it was connected to the electricity supply and had lockable doors. The Ds were acquitted of burglary. The fact that the lorry trailer had wheels meant that it lacked the degree of permanence required for a building.it could still be operated as a vehicle (and not one that was inhabited). |
| WALKINGTON (1979) | D entered a department store and went into a till area clearly marked by a three-sided counter. He opened the unattended cash till. The Court of Appeal upheld the conviction for burglary as D had entered part of a building (the till area) as a trespasser with the intention of stealing. Only staff were permitted to go in this area. |
| JONES AND SMITH (1976) | The Ds took two TVs from the house of the father of D1. The Court of Appeal upheld the convictions for burglary. D1 had a general permission to enter his father’s house, but he had knowingly exceeded the permission by entering the house in the middle of the night with the intent to steal. Thus, the Ds were trespassers. |
| COLLISTER AND WARHURST (1955) | The two Ds were police officers. Within a suspect’s hearing, they discussed the chances of them dropping the charges against him in return for payment. They did not make a direct demand for payment. However, their discussion was held to be a demand for the purpose of blackmail. Their convictions were upheld on appeal. |
| TREACY v DPP (1971) | D posted a letter containing a demand with menaces in England to someone in Germany. Even though the letter would not be opened until it arrived in Germany, the House of Lords held that D could be guilty of blackmail in England as this was where D posted the letter. |
| HARVEY, ULYETT AND PLUMMER (1981) | The Ds had paid V £20,000 for what was supposed to be cannabis but was not. The Ds kidnapped Vs wife and child and made threats of murder and rape if the money was not returned. The Court of Appeal upheld the convictions for blackmail. Although the Ds believed they had reasonable grounds for making the demand, they could not have believed that making threats of murder and rape was a proper means of reinforcing the demand. If D knows that he is threatening to commit a crime, he cannot really believe such a threat to be proper. |
| HARRY (1974) | The organisers of a student charity ‘Rag’ event had written to over 100 shopkeepers offering them immunity from any ‘inconvenience’ resulting from Rag activities, in return for donations to charity. Only a handful of shopkeepers complained. The trial judge pointed out that as a group the shopkeepers who received the letter were unconcerned about the supposed threat. Thus there was not sufficient evidence of menace. |
| GARWOOD (1987) | D had threatened a rather timid person into giving him £10, but the threat was unlikely to have caused a normal person to rect. The Court of Appeal upheld the conviction for blackmail. Although the demand would not usually be a sufficient menace, it would be if D was aware of the likely effect on V. |
| LAWRENCE AND POMROY (1971) | The Ds had done building repairs on Vs house. V was refusing to pay the debt because he claimed the repairs had been poorly done. The Ds went to Vs house and threatened by saying ‘step outside the house and we will sort this out’. The court of Appeal upheld the convictions for blackmail as a demand for a debt legally owed will suffice for blackmail. |
| SILVERMAN (1987) | An excessive quotation for repair work to be done on V’s flat was an untrue representation as to the actual cost of the repairs. |
| LAMBIE (1981) | D used a credit card in a Mothercare shop after she had exceeded the limit on the card. Her conduct in presenting the card to the shop implied that she had the authority of her bank to use it. |
| BARNARD (1837) | D wore a university cap and gown and said he was a member of the university to gain credit in a shop in Oxford. D’s statement that he was a member of the university was an express representation. However, he also made an implied representation that he was a member of the university by wearing the cap and gown. |
| GILMARTIN (1983) | D, a stationer, paid for supplied with post-dated cheques which he knew would not be met. By drawing the cheques he was representing that there would be funds in the account to meet the cheques on the dates they were due to be presented. |
| MPC v CHARLES (1976) | D used a cheque guarantee card to buy gaming chips. He knew that he did not have enough money in his account to meet the cheques and also that the amount would exceed his overdraft limit. The House of Lords held that there was a false representation that he had the bank’s authority to use the cheque guarantee card in the way he did. |
| McDAVITT (1981) | D had an argument with the manager of a restaurant and refused to pay his bill for a meal. He got up and started to walk out but was advised not to leave as the police had been called. He then went into the toilet and stayed there until the police came. The judge directed the jury to acquit D as he had not made off. |
| VINCENT (2001) | D had stayed at two hotels and not paid his bills. D had agreed with the managers of each hotel to pay when he could. Despite these dishonestly obtained agreements to avoid payment, his conviction was quashed by the Court of Appeal. There had been an agreement not to expect payment on the spot and it was irrelevant for the purposes of s.3 that the agreement had been dishonestly obtained. |
| TROUGHTON v MPC (1987) | D was drunk and asked a taxi driver to take him home. He couldn’t remember exactly where he lived and they had an argument. The taxi driver took him to a police station where he ran off. His conviction was quashed by the Divisional Court. Payment was not required or expected because the service was not done (he was not driven home). |
| ALLEN (1985) | D owed over £1000 for his stay at a hotel. He left without paying, but his defence was that he genuinely intended to pay in the near future as he was expecting to receive enough money to cover the bill. His conviction was quashed because it has not been proved that he intended to evade payment altogether. |
| GAYFORD v CHOULER (1898) | D crossed V’s field from one footpath to another, despite being told by the owner not to do so. D trampled on grass that was knee high. The Divisional Court held that trampling grass, or any other kind of vegetation, is criminal damage. |
| ROE v KINGERLEE (1986) | D had smeared mud on the walls of a police cell, which cost £7 to be cleaned off. It was held by the Divisional Court that this could be damage even though it was not permanent, as it cost money time and effort to remove the mud. |
| HARDMAN v CHIEF CONSTABLE OF AVON AND SOMERSET CONSTABULARY (1986) | Where CND protesters used water-soluble paints on pavements. On appeal to Bristol Crown Court it was held that this was criminal damage. The local council was put to the effort and expense or removing the images with water jets. |
| FIAK (2005) | D blocked the toilet in his police station cell with a blanket. He repeatedly flushed the toilet which caused flooding to both his cell and two adjoining cells. The blanket was not visibly soiled but had to be cleaned and dried before it could be used again. The cells also had to be cleaned. The Court of Appeal held that this was criminal damage as the blanket and cells had been made temporarily unusable. |
| A (A JUVENILE) v R (1978) | D spat at a policeman and spit landed on the policeman’s raincoat. On appeal to Kent Crown Court it was held that this was not damage as it would be wiped off with a damp cloth with very little effort. |
| MORPHITIS v SALMON (1990) | It was held by the Divisional Court that a scratch on a metal scaffolding pole was not criminal damage. Scaffolding poles are likely to get scratched in the ordinary cause of use and it does not affect their usefulness. |
| SMITH (1974) | D had finished renting a flat and had removed some electrical wiring, which he had earlier fitted and boarded over. This property was now viewed in civil law as fixtures and so belonged to the landlord. The Court of Appeal quashed his conviction as D’s honest belief that the property was his own meant that he lacked the necessary mens rea. |
| JAGGARD v DICKINSON (1980) | D was drunk and broke into a house thinking it was her friend’s house and believing her friend would have consented to the damage caused. The Divisional Court quashed her conviction as her belief only had to be honest; her drunkenness did not invalidate this so she had a lawful excuse under s.5 (2) (a). |
| HUNT (1978) | D helped his wife in her post as warder of a block of old people’s flats. He set fire to some bedding in order, as he claimed, to draw attention to the fact that the fire alarm was not working. The Court of Appeal upheld his conviction. His act of setting fire to the bedding was not done in order to protect property in need of immediate protection, but for another purpose – to draw attention to the defective fire alarm. |
| CRESSWELL AND CURRIE v DPP (2006) | The Ds destroyed traps which had been set for wild badgers and argued that they had a lawful excuse as they were protecting property (wild badgers). Their convictions were upheld by the Divisional Court as s.5 (2) (b) only applies to protecting ‘property’ ‘belonging to another’. The wild badgers were not property (because they had not been tamed or kept in captivity) and they did not belong to another so the Ds were guilty. |
| BAKER AND WILKINS (1997) | The two Ds believed that Baker’s daughter was being held in a house. They tried to enter the house which caused damage to the door. Their conviction was upheld by the Court of Appeal as s.5 (2) (b) only provides a defence where other property is in immediate need of protection. |
| STEER (1988) | D fired three shots at the home of his former business partner, causing damage to the house. The House of Lords held the danger came from D’s act of shooting the gun and not from any damage done to the house through those shots. Thus D was not liable under s.1 (2). |
| PARKER (1993) | D was convicted under s.1 (2), being reckless as to the endangerment of his neighbours lives when he started a fire in his semi-detached house. The fact that the neighbours were absent and therefore never at risk did not prevent a conviction. |
| MERRICK (1995) | D was employed by the householder to remove some old television cable. While doing this he left the live cable exposed for about six minutes. No one was hurt by this but he was charged with endangering life because of the ‘damage’ to the wiring. D’s conviction under s.1 (2) was upheld by the Court of Appeal. In this case the householder was using D as an agent, but if the householder had done the work personally it seems that he would equally have been guilty, even though it was his own property. |
| MILLER (1983) | D was a squatter in V’s house. He went to sleep holding a lighted cigarette. He woke to find the mattress smouldering. He did nothing to put it out but moved into another room and went to sleep there. The house caught fire. D was convicted of arson contrary to s.1 (1) and a.1 (3). The House of Lords held that when D woke up, he was under a duty to take reasonable steps to prevent harm resulting from the dangerous situation he created. D had the necessary mens rea when he omitted to act – he knew there was a risk that the fire would cause damage and took that risk by doing nothing to put the fire out. |
| DENTON (1982) | D, who worked in a cotton mill, thought that his employer had encouraged him to set fire to the mill so that the employer could make an insurance claim. The Court of Appeal quashed his conviction as he had a defence under s.5 (2) (a) – D honestly believed that the owner of the property consented to the destruction or damage of the property. |
| COLE (1994) | D had been threatened because he owed money. He then committed robbery in order to pay off the debt. He said he only did this because he was in fear for his life and that of his girlfriend and child. The defence of duress was rejected by the Court of Appeal because he had not been under a threat to commit robbery. |
| VALDERRAMA-VEGA (1985) | D illegally imported cocaine. He argued that he had done this because of death threats made by a drug smuggling gang. He was also under financial pressure and had been threatened with disclosure of his homosexual behaviour. The Court of Appeal quashed his conviction. As there had been a threat of death, the jury were entitled to consider the whole of the threats. |
| GILL (1963) | D claimed that he and his wife had been threatened unless he stole a lorry. He could not rely on the defence of duress as there was a period of time during which he was left alone and so could have reasonably raised the alarm. |
| POMMELL (1990) | Where D was found in bed by the police with a loaded machine gun. He said he had taken it to stop the person who had it from hurting someone and as he did not want to carry it around at night, he was going to take it to the police the next morning. On appeal against conviction, the Court of Appeal held that duress of circumstances applied to all crimes except murder, attempted murder and some forms of treason. A retrial was ordered. |
| HUSSAIN AND ANOTHER (2010) | The 2 Ds had attacked and seriously injured a burglar as he was escaping down the street. The Court of Appeal held that they could not use the defence of self-defence to avoid being guilty of s.18 OAPA 1861 as the danger was over when they beat up the fleeing burglar. This was a revenge attack and the use of force was not necessary. |
| WILLIAMS (GLADSTONE) (1987) | In which D punched a police officer whom he mistakenly thought was assaulting someone and was charged with ABH. The Court of Appeal quashed his conviction and held that D was to be judged on the facts as he believed them to be. His mistake as to the need to defend another did not have to be a reasonable one, as long as it was genuinely held. |
| O’GRADY (1987) | Where D, who had been drinking alcohol all day, hit a friend over the head in the mistaken belief that the friend was trying to kill him. The Court of Appeal upheld his conviction for manslaughter. The defence of self-defence was rejected due to his intoxicated mistake. |
| SHEEHAN AND MOORE (1975) | The Ds were very drunk when they threw petrol over a homeless person and set him on fire. V died as a result. They were too drunk to have formed any intent to kill or any intent to cause GBH. The Court of Appeal held that because the Ds did not have the mens rea for murder, their voluntary intoxication was a defence to that specific intent crime. |
| A-G FOR NORTHER IRELAND v GALLAGHER (1963) | D bought a knife to kill his wife and also a bottle of whiskey to give himself ‘Dutch Courage’ to carry out the murder. He drank a large amount of the whisky before killing his wife. His conviction for murder was upheld by the House of Lords. A drunken intent is still an intent. |
| DPP v MAJEWSKI (1976) | D had taken both alcohol and drugs. In a very intoxicated state, he then attacked people in a pub and also the police officers who tried to arrest him. D claimed he had no recollection of the events due to his intoxication. He was convicted of various offences, including ABH. The House of Lords upheld all of his convictions; his voluntary intoxication was not a defence to these basic intent offences. |
| KINGSTON (1994) | D’s coffee was spiked with drugs by a blackmailer. D then abused a teenage boy and was charged with indecent assault. He argues that he would not have done this had he not been drugged. The House of Lords upheld his conviction for indecent assault. D had still formed the mens rea for the offence so the involuntary intoxication was not a defence. The fact that an intoxicating substance removed his inhibitions and he would not have done it if sober was not enough. |
| HARDIE (1984) | D was depressed because his girlfriend (V) had told him to move out of their flat. He took some of Vs Valium tablets to calm himself down. However, he went on to set fire to a wardrobe in the flat while V was asleep in another room. His conviction of the basic intent offence of aggravated criminal damage was quashed by the Court of Appeal. He had taken Valium tablets not knowing they could make his behaviour unpredictable. He had not been reckless in getting intoxicated and lacked the necessary mens rea at the time of setting fire to the wardrobe. |
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