A2 Law Robbery Case Study. Discuss the criminal liability of Dave

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Tajinder Singh Ranshi

A2 Law – Robbery

Discuss the criminal liability of Dave

Dave may have committed the offence of a robbery.

This comes from Section 8 of the Theft Act 1968. The actus reus for this offence is the ar for a theft and the use or threat of force. We must then consider the 2 conditions before moving on to the mens rea. The mr for robbery is the same mr for a theft as well as the intention to use force to steal.

The first stage which we look at is appropriation; this comes from section 3 of the Theft Act 1968. It is defined as assuming the right of the owner. In other words this is taking over one of the rights and using the item as your own. In the case of Pitham and Hehl it didn’t matter that the furniture was not physically removed from the owner’s house, by the defendants selling it they had assumed the owners’ rights. We can further look at Morris we were told that if the defendant proved the assumption of any of the rights, then the owner of the goods can be prosecuted. This case showed us that you don’t need every right. Applying this back to the scenario, Dave assumes the right of possession when she takes the money from the post office.

Secondly we look at property; this comes from section 4 of the Theft Act 1968. There are 5 types of property. They are; Personal property, real property, other intangible property, things in action and money. In the scenario we are able to see that the property which has been appropriated was money.

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We then look at belonging to another; this comes from section 5 of the Theft Act 1968. This is not concerned with the legal owner but with whoever is in possession/ control of the item. You only need to prove that someone was in possession/ control of the item in question. In the scenario Dave has to take the item from whoever is in possession or control of the item. However we can establish that the post office is in possession and control of the money. Firstly we can see whether one of the employees is in possession of it ...

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