Theft

Theft

Theft act 1968
1. Theft Act 1978
2. Theft (amendment) act (1978)
3. Fraud Act 2006
4. A person is guilty of theft if he dishonestly appropriates property belonging to another with the intention of permenantly deprivinng him of it (s.1 1
Appropriation (3(1)
1. Vital component of Actus reus----definition: take, acquire, obtain, grab, seize, steal, get, rob, pinch etc
2. any assumption by a person of of the rights of an owner amounts to an appropriation, and this include where he has come by the property (innocently
  1. rights of the owner
    1. Selling it
    2. destroying it
    3. Using it
    4. hiring it
    5. possesing it
    6. consuming it
    7. lending it
3. or not) without stealing it, any later assumption of a right to it by keeping or dealing with it as a owner
4. offering items for sale that belong to another person is appropriation (Pitham v Hehl)
5. grabbing a handbag is appropriation even if it falls to the floor (Corcoran v Anderson)
6. assumption of any single right will suffice (R v Morris)
7. theft can still take place even it the owner consents i.e. by decpetion (Gomez)
8. no need to show that there was consent (Lawrence)
9. immaterial whether the acts were done with the victims consent or authority (Hinks) low iq victim who lavished gifts
10. if a cheque is fake, the property is obtained by deception and thus appropriated by the buyer (Dobson v General accident and fire)
11. signing blank cheques does not assume the rights of the owner but presenting them to be cashed does (Ngan)
12. matters little where the defendant is, it matters where the act of appropriation took place (Governer of Brixton Prison ex parte Levin)
13. if property is purchased in good faith, the 'owner' is not guilty of theft (s.3(2))
Property s.4
1. 'includes money and all other property real or personal, including things in action and other intangible property (s.4(1)
  1. Land, Currency, cars, jewellery, information, bank account, rights
    1. body parts are also property (Kelly and Lindsay)
2. things that cannot be stolen
  1. s4(3) wild mushrooms, flowers, fruits or foilage
    1. unless it is picked for reward, sale or another commercial purpose
  2. A wild untamed creature (s.4(4))
    1. unless it has been reduced to possession by another person
3. Real Property
  1. land, property, building, site, field, house, factory
  2. can be stolen in three ways
    1. trustees, representatives and liquidators can steal land if acting in breach of their confidence (s.4(2)(a)
    2. something that is severed from the land e.g. bricks, turf, doors (s.(4)(2)(b)
    3. tenant can steal fixtures or structures from the land he is renting if he appropriates (s.4(2)(c)
4. things in action i.e. causing anothers bank account to be debited (kohn)
5. Intangible property
  1. i.e. patent
Belonging to another s.5
1. Section 5(1)
  1. possession or control of it
    1. does not have to be lawful
    2. defendant can steal his own property if another person had possesion or control over it (Turner)
  2. any proprietary right or interest
    1. property received under an obligation will still belong to the owner s.5(3)
      1. important that the defendant was obliged to deal with the property in a particular way and then failed to do so
2. property received by mistake
  1. still belong to the original owner
    1. obligation upon person to restore property to the original owner (s.5(4)
Mens Rea of theft
1. dishonestly s.2(1)
  1. not dishonest if:
    1. appropriates property in the belief that he has in law the right to deprive the other of it
    2. appropriates property in the belief that he would have the others consent if the other knew
      1. the word belief features in all 3
        if the defendant honestly holds one of the beliefs, then he is not dishonest (Turner)
    3. appropriates property in the belief that the person to whom the property belongs cannot be discovered by taking reasonable steps
  2. should be judgd by the jury according to standards of ordinary decent people (Feely)
  3. Objective and subjective--view of the reasonable man then view of the defendant (Ghosh)
2. intention to permenantly deprive
  1. his intention is to treat the thing as his own to dispose of regardless of the others rights s6(1)
    1. dictoniary definition of dispose of used in Cahill
      1. widened to include dealing with in DPP v Lavender
  2. mere borrowing is never enough to constitute a guilty mind unless the intention to return the thing was in such a change d state that all of the
    1. goodness or virtue has gone (Lloyd)

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