Crown Court
| DOI | 10.1177/002201830306700302 |
| Date | 01 June 2003 |
| Published date | 01 June 2003 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Crown
Court
Stealing Property from a Corpse
RvSullivan and Ballion [2002] Crim LR
758
An interesting issue arose in this case.
Although
there
is a paucity of
modern
authorities on this matter,
none
the
less it
must
always
have
been
quite
common
for
the
property
of a deceased
person
to be dis-
honestly appropriated shortly after his
death
and
before title to
that
property
had
been
precisely
determined.
An
important
point
arises, of to
whom
the
property
actually belongs. The case for
the
prosecution in Rv
Sullivan
and
Ballion was
that
the
defendants, acting in concert,
had
together
stolen £50,000. Apparently,
V,
anotorious
drug
dealer,
had
arrived in Kent
with
the
money,
the
provenance
of
which
was proceeds
of
drug
dealing on behalf of a group of local
drug
dealers
known
as 'The
Firm'. Unfortunately for Vgreater justice was delivered from above in
that
he
had
no
opportunity
to
'enjoy'
the
fruits of his
apparently
ill-
gotten gains. He
went
to
the
home
of
the
defendants,
and
there
died,
most likely from
the
effect of a
drug
overdose.
It
was alleged by
the
prosecution
that
the
defendants, recovering well from
their
grief at
the
sad event, took
the
money.
Subsequently, at a pre-trial hearing held
under
s. 40 of
the
Criminal
Procedure
and
Investigations Act 1996,
the
defence
argued
that
the
Crown
could
not
prove
that
the
money
was
'property
belonging to
another'
within
the
context of
the
Theft Act 1968.
Thus, an issue arose involving proceeds of illegal
drug
dealing,
and
the
nature
of 'possession'
under
the
legislation. Were
the
proceeds held
on behalf of
those
on
whose
behalf illegal
drug
dealing had
been
undertaken,
or
did they revert into possession of
the
estate of
the
dead
drug dealer? An alternative was
that
the
proceeds reverted to
the
Crown
as bona vacantia.
HELD,
averdict of
not
guilty be entered. The
judge
set
out
a
number
of
important
points.
1. Although in an appropriate case,
the
Crown could
advance
the
case
that
the
property
of an
unknown
person had
been
stolen,
that
was not
the
situation here. This was
not
a case of theft from a
person
unknown,
as in
the
case of a
defendant
picking up a
banknote
in
the
street
where
it could be inferred
that
someone
owned
and
did
not
intend to
abandon
it.
2. The
only
persons
who
might be able to claim
ownership
were
'The
Firm'. Their right could
only
be asserted, however, in reliance on
illegal transactions for
the
sale of drugs,
and
the
court
would
not
permit a title
to
be asserted on such a basis
(d.
Tinsley vMilligan
[1994J 1 AC 340). As
the
law of theft
depended
on
the
civil law for
its concepts of possession
and
ownership,
the
Crown was right to
concede
that
'The Firm' could
not
be
the
owners.
186
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