Part 4 - Criminal

• Theft

  The appropriation of property belonging to another without consent with the intent to deprive the person of his/her property
• Property

  • Has to be carporial – moveable
  • Has to belong to someone else
  • Enough to know that you are NOT the owner
• Amotio


  What is it that you need to do to appropriate someone's property
• Amotio

  • Containers
  • Rooms
  • Open spaces
• Theft by finding

  Temporary appropriation
• Aggravated forms of theft

  • Theft by opening a lockfast place; stealing from a locked place – commonly cars
  • Theft by house breaking; stealing from a building with a roof. Security has been breached or entrance made by unusual means
  • Housebreaking with intent to steal
• Robbery


  Theft accomplished by violence or intimidation
• Violence against property is not robbery - to become robbery Violence must precede the theft or happen concurrently and Violence must be a means to the theft
• Reset

  Being privy to the retention of goods which have been dishonestly obtained by another, knowing that the goods have been stolen, or being wilfully blind
• Cannot be guilty of both theft and reset - Need not to get from the thief to be guilty of reset - simple knowledge of the property being stolen is enough
• Mens rea (reset)


  Knowing the goods have been stolen/wilfully blind
• Wilful blindness

  Sufficient if circumstances proved which persons of ordinary understanding and situated as the accused must have led to the conclusion that they were dishonestly acquired
• Embezzlement


  Misappropriation of goods to which the accused had been entrusted, intending to deprive the owner of the goods
• Actus reus (embezzlement) - misappropriated goods
• Mens rea (embezzlement) - intending to deprive the owner
• Embezzlement differs from theft since the accused has been entrusted with the goods
• Embezzlement must have a breach of trust
• Fraud

  The obtaining of a practical result by means of a false pretence, intending to achieve that result
• Fraud causes the dupe (victim) to act in a way they would not have
• Extortion


  The obtaining of property or some other advantage by means of illegitimate threats or demands, intending to deprive the owner of the property, or to gain the advantage
• Extortion differs from robbery - immediate threat. Extortion - postponed threat
• Malicious mischief/malicious damage


  Wilfully or recklessly causing damage to another's property
• Vandalism


  Wilfully or negligently destroys or damages any property belonging to another, not including wilful fire-raising
• Fire-raising

  • Wilful fire-raising
  • Culpable and reckless fire-raising
• Criminal Law (Consolidation) (Scotland) Act 1995, s.52

  vandalism -

  wilfully or negligently destroys or damages any property belonging to another, not including wilful fire-raising.

   
• Extortion

  Black v Carmichael
• Fraud

  28. Adcock v Archibald
• Theft

  27. Black v Carmichael – temporary appropriation