This particular aspect has problems due to the assumption of all the rights of the owner.
In R v Morris (1983) Morris took two items in a supermarket and put lower marked labels on them. He took the items to checkout was charged the lower price and was later arrested.
The fact that he switched labels for a lower price one built up to appropriation because this was an assumption by the defendant of the owners right to chose what price the goods were to be sold at.
Here we can see a problem as the owner had not consented the defendant to switch labels. The offence was committed due to the owner not having consented the defendant.
Property can be known as money, houses, etc as explained in section 4(1):
‘Property includes money and all other property real or personal including things in action with other intangible property’s.’
The problem with this part is how to distinguish whether or not it is an offence to steal a certain type of property. For example in the case of Oxford v Moss a student borrowed a copy of an examination paper copied the questions and then returned it.
The courts held that he was not guilty of an offence as information cannot be stolen.
Property belonging to a person in civil law will be treated as belonging to them even in the event of theft as section 5 states:
‘Property shall b regarded as belonging to any person having possession or control of it or having it in any proprietary right or interest’
The definition goes further that this which includes simple possession without the rights of ownership. This is explained in the case R v Turner where the defendant took his car from outside the garage where he had left it to be repaired intending to not pay for he repair. The court of appeal held that he was in fact liable for stealing his own car as it was in the possession of the garage when he took it.
As we can see this part seems to cause confusion as trying to establish who earns certain property as the case stated above the paper which the questions had been typed belonged to Liverpool University but due to the fact that there was no evidence to state he had the intention to permanently deprive the University of the Property.
In conclusion the actus reus of theft has a number of problems as trying to distinguish whether the defendant had attempted to steal certain property also how they came by the property.
