Here are the Key Cases you need to know for the Mens Rea of Theft.
(Quick Key - D = Defendant, V = Victim, MR = Mens Rea, CoA = Court of Appeal, HoL = House of Lords, ‼ = Comments)
R v Turner (no 2.) (1971)
D left his car at a garage for repairs, agreeing that he would pay for the repairs when he collected the car. The garage left the car outside their premises and D used a spare key to take the car without consent.D convicted.
CoA held that the garage were in possession or control of the car at the time, so D could be guilty of stealing his own car.
‼ When does someone become in possession or control? When does that possession control end? Wouldn't it be theft of the fees owned to the garage, not theft of the car?
R v Ghosh (1982)
D was a doctor who claimed fees for operations he hadn't carried out.
D convicted despite arguing that he wasn't being dishonest as he was owed the same amount for consulation fees. The trial judge directed the jury that they must apply their own standards to decide if what he did was dishonest.
‼ The CoA decided that the test for dishonesty has both an objective and subjective element to it.
Obj: Was what was done dishonest according to ordinary standards of reasonable and honest people?
Subj: Did the defendant realise that what he was doing was dishonest by those standards?
R v Velumyl (1989)
D took £1,050 from the office safe. He said he was owed the money by a friend and he was going to replace the moeny when that friend repaid him.
CoA upheld his conviction for theft as he had the intention to permanently depriving the company of the banknotes he had taken.
‼ Even though he was planning to return the same value of money, so there was no intention to permanently deprive the office of the sum of money, there was intention to permanently deprive the office of the exact banknotes he took.
DPP v Lavender (1994)
D took doors from a council property which was being repaird and used them to replace damaged doors in his girlfriends council flat. The doors were still in possession of the council but had been transferred without permission from one council property to another.
Divisional Court held that the question was whether he intended to treat the doors as his own, regardless of the rights of the council. The answer was yes, so D was guilty of theft.
‼ Would he still have been guilty of theft if he never touched, saw, used the doors ever again? What if he replaced the doors?
R v Marshall (1998)
D obtained underground tickets from travellers who had passed through the barriers and resold them.
D was convicted and the conviction was upheld.
‼ It was treated as theft as the tickets had been treated as his own. But they remained property of the train company. Would it have made a difference if he had given the money to the train company? Or whoever bought the tickets didn't use them?
R v Fernandez (1996)
D was a solicitor who wiothdrew money from a clients acount following a court order, but he then invested this money in a loan shark.
This was held to be theft as he had treated the money as his own.
‼ Would this have been any different if he had spent the money? Given it back to the client? Given it to his bosses?
R v Lloyd (1985)
D borrowed films from a friend of his who was a cinema projectionist. D made pirate copies and then returned the films in time for the next showing.
D was convicted of theft, but had his conviction quashed, as he did not intend to permanently deprive the cinema of the films - he returned them in their original state.
‼ If he had scratched the disks, would that have been considered 'altered'? Or if he had drawn on them, or otherwised altered them?
R v Easom (1971)
D picked up a handbag in a cinema, looked through it and put it back on the floor.
D was convicted of theft, but CoA quashed her conviction as they could not prove the intention to permanently deprive.
‼ If she had taken the bag home, he would have been convicted. What if she had stolen something inside the bag, or had taken it home, used it, then returned it to the cinema, where it was then lost? Would she be convicted of theft, as she risked its lost?
No comments:
Post a Comment