The 1968 Theft Act Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

The 1968 Theft Act - Assignment Example This research will begin with the statement that the 1968 Theft Act was supposed to come with simplified rules and policies that were meant to eliminate the many dilemmas and confusions that criminal lawyers had faced earlier. Unfortunately, soon after its introduction into the legislation more complexities started to arise. It appeared that most of the concepts that were designed to bring out clarity in theft cases turned out to bring more confusion following the various proceedings that advanced from there henceforth. The most controversial concept being appropriation which had been introduced into the law to simplify things by replacing taking and carrying away. The term was defined in partiality by section 3 (1) of the Theft Act. Lack of further explanation on the term by the legislative is what caused more problems. Two issues arose:Â  one is what the relationship between consent and appropriation was and the second, the possibility of appropriating property that was acquired i n a transaction impeccable at civil law. This essay tries to analyze these facts using issue raised in two important cases R v Hinks and DPP v Gomez. The researcher of this essay also utilizes Shute’s views from his article Appropriation and the law of theft. The purpose of this research is to investigate the following: consent and appropriation; unimpeachable transfers and appropriation and evaluation of arguments Hinks case.... 41). There are other valid reasons where a transaction is censured at common law on a number of certain defined grounds. These can be where the transaction is a product of duress, and it may have been through deception, undue influence, fraud, or misrepresentation (Horder & Shute, 1993, p. 549). Sometimes the transaction can be vitiated to have occurred because there was enough reason to believe one party was unconscious. In the event that any of the above occurs then the transaction should remain valid until the transferor repudiates it successfully. Unimpeachable Transfers and Appropriation This issue arises where a transfer of property is unimpeachable at both equity and at common law. This matter arose in Mazo (1997) case where a house cleaner took advantage of her employer’s mental incapability to dishonestly receive and cash cheques made payable to her by her boss. The house cleaner was sentenced to Jail after being found guilty for five counts of theft and one count of attempted theft. On her appeal, the court held it that the case was consistent with that of Lawrence v Metropolitan Police commissioner (1972) where the House of Lords decision was that in the event a valid gift was made then there could be no theft. However, it was not clear as per Viscount Dilhorne’s speech in the Lawrence case whether the House of Lords could not charge the receiver of the gift with theft, which was consistent with the ruling in Gomez case. This decision was later addressed in the case of Hinks that happened two years later after the Gomez and Lawrence cases. In Hinks case, he was convicted of five counts of theft despite his argument that the sums received were gifts and loans therefore could not be appropriated