A2 Law-making off without payment from a taxi.

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Tajinder Singh Ranshi

A2 Law – Making Off Without Payment

Discuss the criminal liability of Armani?

Armani may have committed the offence of making off without payment.

This offence is set out in Section 3 of the Theft Act 1978.  The actus reus for the offence is the defendant must have made off, there must be goods which have been supplied or a service has been done, payment is required on the spot and the defendant has not paid as required. The mens rea is that they must have acted dishonest, they had knowledge that payment was required on the spot and there was intention to avoid payment.

The first stage of the actus reus is making off. This means that the defendant leaves a place where payment is required. This was highlighted in the case of McDavitt where in the lp we were told that the defendant had not made off as he had not left the restaurant. If we apply this back to the scenario it is clear that the d had made off without paying as the d jumps out of the taxi and runs away before paying for it.

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Secondly we ask whether there were any goods supplied or a service done. If the service is complete then there is no offence. In the case of Troughton v Met police the d was convicted off not paying for his taxi journey. On appeal the conviction got quashed as the journey wasn’t completed. This meant that there was a breach of contract by the taxi driver and so the d was not bound to pay the fare. Applying this back to the scenario we can see that the journey was complete as there was a location given and the taxi ...

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