Court of Criminal Appeal
| Date | 01 July 1951 |
| Published date | 01 July 1951 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002201835101500304 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Court of Criminal Appeal
FALSE
PRETENCES
:OBTAINING CHEQUE FROM AGENT OF
OWNER
R. v. Ball
INdefining
the
offence of obtaining
by
false pretences
section 32 of
the
Larceny Act, 1916, provides
that
the
chattel, money, or valuable security shall be obtained
"from
any
other person".
The
section does
not
say
"obtains
from
the
owner".
The
short point in R. v. Ball
(115,
J.P.
210) was whether, in certain circumstances,
the
offence
can
be committed if
the
property
is obtained from
an agent of
an
owner.
The
appellant
had
appeared
at
a house with aload of
peat
and
had
represented to
the
occupier of
the
house
that
he would sell
the
peat
to
him
at
the
rate
of £3
per
1,000
blocks.
The
occupier gave acheque to his wife to pass
to
the
appellant when he delivered
the
peat.
Later
the
appellant saw
the
wife, told her
that
he
had
delivered
about
3,000 blocks of
peat
and
that
the
price would be £10.
The
wife
then
handed
the
appellant her husband's cheque for
£10.
In
fact only 980 blocks
had
been delivered.
It
was
thus
aclear case of obtaining
by
false pretences,
but
the
objection was
taken
by
the
appellant
that
the
indictment
alleged
that
he obtained
the
cheque from
the
wife when
it
should have been alleged
that
he obtained it from
the
husband, because
the
cheque belonged
to
the
husband,
the
wife being his agent. As was pointed
out
by
Lord Goddard,
C.J., in delivering
the
judgment of
the
Court
(Hilberyand
Devlin
JJ.),
there is no
doubt
that
'obtains' means obtaining
the
property
and
not merely possession,
and
the
obtaining
for this purpose
must
not
be in such circumstances as
amount
to larceny. There
must
be an
intent
to obtain avaluable
security from some 'other' person.
The
appellant did
obtain
the
cheque from some other person, namely Mrs. A
who was named in
the
indictment. She was her husband's
106
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