theft cases Flashcards
Pitham v Hehl
D offered to sell furniture for a friend in prison. Offer to sell was assumption of rights of owner and appropriation took place at that point.
It did not matter whether furniture was removed from the house or not. Even if the owner was never deprived, d had still appropriated it by assuming the rights of the owner to offer the furniture for sale.
Morris
D switched price of labels in the supermarket. Arrested before he got to the checkout to pay.
Conviction for theft was upheld as the owner’s right to put a price label on the food was a right that had been assumed.
Lawerence
Italian student who payed taxi driver £6 for a 50p journey. Spoke little English and driver took advantage of this.
Lawerence said not enough for appropriation as student has consented to him taking it. Court stated that there was appropriation in this situation.
Gomez
D worked a shop assistant and persuaded the manager to accept in payment for goods, two cheques known to be stolen.
Hinks
Woman accepted daily cash payments from a man as “gifts”. About £60,000 was deposited into D’s account. Man also gave her a TV set.
Acceptance of a gift can constitute appropriation. Would an ordinary member of the public view it as dishonesty?
Kelly and Lindsay
Kelly asked Lindsay to take body parts from where he worked. D’s convicted of theft and appealed that body parts were not properly.
Body parts were property as they had acquired “different attributes by virtue of the application of skill such as dissection or preservation techniques, for exhibition or teaching purposes”.
Oxford v Moss
D acquired proof of an examination paper he was due to sit. Accepted D did not intent to permanently deprive the university, so was charged with theft of confidential information.
Not guilty as the confidential information on the paper did not amount to intangible property of the purposes of theft act 1968.
Turner no2
D took his car from a repair garage at night using a spare key so he didn’t have to pay for repairs. Repairers have a right to retain possession of item being repaired until payment is made, so D stole his car.
Webster
D was an army sergeant and accidentally got sent two medals instead of one. D sold second medal on eBay and for confites of theft.
Ministry of defence had regained an equitable interest in the medal. Ministry still had a proprietary interest in the medal.
Hall
D was a travel agent and received deposits from clients for air trips to America but D did not organise flights and could not get a refund.
Conviction quashed as when D received the deposits, he was not under an obligation to deal with them in a particular way.
Kleinberg and Marsden
Defendants sold timeshare apartments in Lanzarote. Over £500,000 was payed to the defendants but only £233 was paid into the trust companies account.
Guilty of theft as it was clear that they were under obligation to the purchasers “to retain and deal with that property or its proceeds in a particular way” and they had not done this.
Davidge v Bunnett
D was given money from her flat mates to pay for the gas bill but instead she used it to buy Christmas presents.
Even though it was an informal arrangement, there was a clear obligation to deal with property in a certain way.
Gilks
D placed a bet on a horse race. Bookmaker overpaid D, D realised this and did not rerun the money. Ownership of the money had passed to D.
As betting transactions are not an enforceable law s5(4) did not apply and D was not guilty.
Ghosh
D claimed fees for an operation he didn’t carry out. He said he was not dishonest as he was owed the same amount for consultation fees.
Test for dishonesty has objective and subjective element to it. Was what was done dishonest according to standards of reasonable and honest people? And did D realise that he was dishonest by those standards?
Velumyl
D took £1050 from the office safe. He said he was owed the money from a friend and would pay the safe back when he got payed.
Conviction upheld has he had the intention to permanently deprive the office from the bank notes even if he intended on giving it back, it was different bank notes.
