Court of Appeal
| Date | 01 February 1985 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002201838504900104 |
| Published date | 01 February 1985 |
| Subject Matter | Case Notes |
COURT
OF
APPEAL
OBTAINING BY DECEPTION
R. v. Thompson (Michael)
The
computer programming skills of the appellant in the present
case ([1984] 1W.L.R. 962) were the key to his fraudulent
enterprise
and
the origins of his downfall. Employed by a bank in
Kuwait, he took advantage of his position by programming the
bank's computer to debit certain client accounts and corre-
spondingly credit accounts
opened
in his name. Having taken all
care to ensure his fraud would
not
be detected (by causing the
transactions to be
entered
on the records of the accounts only after
he had left Kuwait and by causing any evidence of the transactions
within
the
computer to be erased) he returned to England.
He
then
opened a
number
of bank accounts in England and wrote to the
Kuwaiti
bank
requesting that asubstantial amount of his apparent
credit balances (about £45,000) be telexed to England to his
newly-opened accounts. This was duly done via the Kuwaiti bank's
correspondent bank in London
and
the appellant subsequently
withdrew the money.
He
was charged with obtaining
the
money by deception, contrary
to section 15 of
the
Theft
Act
1968.It was alleged that
the
obtaining
took place in England when
the
money was received intohisvarious
bank accounts here and was brought about by his letter to the
Kuwaiti bank representing that
the
amountsstatedas creditedto his
accounts in Kuwait were genuine
and
accurate
and
he was entitled
to receive payment. On the appellant's behalf it was argued that he
had already obtained the moneyin question by his actions in Kuwait
causing accounts in his name to be credited with amounts debited
from
other
accounts. Section 15(2) of the Theft Act 1968 provides
that aperson is to be treated as obtaining property if he obtains
ownership, possession or control
and
it was submitted that at the
time of the events taking place in England, the appellant had
already obtained control of his ostensible credit balance in Kuwait
(at least until the Kuwaiti bank discovered the fraud). His control
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