Property Offences (Theft) Flashcards
What are the two provisions covering property offences?
Section 219: Theft
Section 220: Theft within a special relationship
What are the actus reus of theft under Section 219?
Actus reus of theft comprises three elements:
- Must be property that is stolen
- Be taken, used or dealt away with
- Object of theft must be in the possession or ownership by another person
What are the mens rea requirements of theft under section 219
Mens rea of theft comprises three elements:
- Intent to permanently deprive any owner of either the property or any interest in said property
- Must act dishonestly (knowingly)
- Has no claim or right over the object of theft
What is regarded as property for the purposes of theft?
Property has a very broad definition as listed in section 2(1);
Property includes real and personal property, and any estate or interest in any real or personal property, money, electricity, and any debt, and any thing in action, and any other right or interest.
Under this definition, most things are property and capable of being stolen.
Does property need to be physical?
Property for the purposes of law is both tangible and intangible.
Is the economic value of property relevant to what is property?
Before codification, certain items must have a certain economic value to be considered property.
That is no longer case, the value of an item is no longer relevant to whether it is property or not.
Value is only relevant to sentencing with regards to theft.
What constitutes tangible items?
Tangible equates to physical property.
What are “things in action”
“Things in action” are things that the law acknowledges to have property rights but do not physically exists and can only be validated via legal “action”.
What does the case Police v Davies demonstrate?
Police v Davies demonstrates “things in actions” that constitute as property.
The defendant used wifi for something other than its stated purpose. The owner of the wifi sued him alleging he stole from him.
The court affirmed that wifi, measurable in megabytes, was a “thing in action” and therefore property. The defendant was held to have stolen internet usage.
Is information regarded as property?
Information that is attached to a physical object is regarded as property if that object is taken.
However, information with no physical attachment is regarded as pure and therefore is not property.
To make information property would make this area of law too broad.
What does the case of Oxford v Moss stand for?
Exam answers were copied by cheating student before exam.
Court held that theft did not occur as the paper containing the exam answers were not taken. The copying of information is an extraction of pure information and falls under an area of law that is not property.
Demonstrates pure information.
What does the case of Dixon v R stand for?
Rugby player caught flirting with someone that was not his wife. Defendant obtained video via digital files with intention to sell. Was sued.
Supreme court ruled that the digital file was property as it had some physical presence, was identifiable and could be transferred. The digital file was property but the information on it was not.
Demonstrates how information can be attached to taking of something regarded as property.
Are corpses considered as bodies?
Takemore v Clarke has ruled that in NZ, no dead body nor any appendages are regarded as property and therefore cannot be stolen.
However, in some overseas jurisdictions, dead parts can be transformed into an object for historical and medical purposes, but that is not clear in NZ
What wild animals are capable of being stolen?
In NZ, all animals found in the wild belong to the Crown but upon capture or killing, ownership is transferred to the capturer or killer.
Are there additional ways in which animals may be stolen?
If an animal is kept in captivity, escaped from captivity or is rare in NZ, are all animals that are capable of being stolen.
Seafood that is farmed are also property.
