Appropriation and Manifest Criminality in Theft
| Author | Steve Uglow,Marianne Giles |
| DOI | 10.1177/002201839205600207 |
| Published date | 01 May 1992 |
| Date | 01 May 1992 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
APPROPRIATION
AND
MANIFEST
CRIMIN
ALITY
IN
THEFT
Marianne Giles" and Steve Uglow**
INTRODucnON
Central to the definition of theft in the Theft Act 1968 is the concept of
appropriation.1The Eighth Report of the Criminal Law Revision Commit-
tee (CLRC)2 on which the statute is based used the word 'appropriation'
to get away from difficulties of interpretation of such phrases as 'taking
and carrying away' and 'without the consent of the owner' at common law
and in the Larceny
Acts.'
The Report indicated that the term 'appropria-
tion' was to convey in ordinary language the concept of conversion."
Perhaps this was optimistic-'appropriation' is not a common word in
everyday conversation nor have the judiciary interpreted it in the way the
CLRC intended."
Recent case law has further compounded the uncertainty,6culminating
in the case of RvGomez' which Allen and Cooper in their recent
article" use as support for their subjectivist interpretation of the term
'appropriation',concluding thatoutwardlyconsensual behaviour can consti-
tute appropriation, depending upon the state of mind of the actor when
she or he carried out the act. In order to support this contention they
purport to reconcile the House of Lords cases of Lawrence vComr
of
Police
for
the Metropolis' and R v Morris, 10 taking particular aspects of
Lord Roskill's sometimes contradictory judgment in that latter case which
seem to accord with the Lawrence approach.
There are difficulties in such a theory, not least in explaining Lord
Roskill's interpretation in Morris of prior Court of Appeal cases" and
•Lecturer in Law, University of Kent .
••
Senior Lecturer in Law, University of Kent.
1Section 3(1) of the Act states:
'Any
assumption by a person of the rights of an owner
amounts to an appropriation, and this includes, whether he has come by the property
(innocently or not) without stealing it, any later assumption of a right to it by keeping or
dealing with it as owner'.
2Theft and Related Offences, Cmnd 2977.
3Larceny Acts 1861 and 1916.
4See Cmnd 2977, paras 33-35.
5
It
is a rule of statutory interpretation that reports of this nature could not be referred to
in order to decide Parliament's intention-Black-Clawson International Ltd v Papierwerke
Waldhof-Aschaffenburg
AG
[1975J AC 591.
6Eg, see Dobson v General Accident Fire and Life Assurance Corporation [1990J
QB
274
and R v Phillippou (1989) 89 Cr App R 290.
7(1991) 3 All
ER
394; 141
NU
599.
8MJ Allen and S Cooper, 'Rethinking Appropriation' 56 JCL 87.
9[1972J AC 626.
10 [1984J AC 320.
II
Eg R v Meech [1974J
QB
549; R v Skipp [1975J Crim LR 115.
179
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