Intent In Forgery―I
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1965.tb01052.x |
| Published date | 01 March 1965 |
| Author | Tom Hadden |
| Date | 01 March 1965 |
INTENT
IN
FORGERY-I
I.
INTENT TO
DECEIVE
IN
THE
1918
ACT
TRE
1913
Forgery Act is “an Act to consolidate, simplify and
amend the law relating to forgery and kindred offences.” One of
its major provisions was the division of all documents subject to
the law of forgery into two classes, public and private
l;
thus an
intent to defraud someone
ia
an essential element of the crime of
forging a private document but for a public document
an
intent
to deceive only is sufficient.
It
is the object‘ of this article and its
successor to point out that
in
making this particular distinction the
Act was straying very
far
from the simple consolidation of the
common law, and that instead of simplifying the law
it
has intro-
duced a new and totally unnecessary complication. That the Act
did not consolidate the law
will
be established by showing that at
common law
it
was always essential to prove an intent to defraud for
all classes of documents, and that
it
did not who!!y succeed in
simplifying the law may
be
deduced from the recent dispute
concerning the exact meaning of the two phrases “intent to
deceive
”
and
‘‘
intent
to
defraud.” Finally, some suggestions
will be made concerning the analysis of
‘‘
intent
to
defraud
’’
as
applied to public documents at common law, which
it
is hoped will
enable us both to explain and to reject the claim of some writers
that an intent to defraud means exclusively an intent to cause some
economic loss.
The claim that the 1918 Act does not represent the common
law may seem rather startling in view of the
fact
that the modem
texts
8
accept the distinction set out above as a
valid
statement of
the pre-1918 position.
It
may be justified, however, both by
showing that there is
no
authority for the distinction in the earlier
cases and by indicating how the mistake may have arisen. The
recognition of this mistaken distinction may then be of assistance
in
dealing with the academically interesting but
in
practice unreward-
ing dispute about deceit and fraud, and should clear the ground for
a discussion of the more fundamental problem, which has always
1
See
8.
4.
2
Fridmen [1958] Crim.L.R. 503; [1960] Crim.L.R. 530; Turner
Crim.L.R. 465; Gooderson [1960] Camb.L.J. 199;
Welham
V.
D.P.P.
[i:!?]
A.C.
103.
3
Russell
on
Crime,
12th ed., pp. 1238-1239: “The common law distinction
between writings
of
a
public,,character and those
of
a
private has been
preserved in the Forgery Act
;
Archbold,
Criminal Pleading
and
Practice,
35th
ed.,
5
2172. Renny.
Outlines
of
Criminal
Law,
18th ed., pp.
366-367.
The earlier editions
of
Eenny (13th 1929) end Russell (7th
1909,
9th 1936) take
the view that the part
of
8.
4
which deals with public documents
in
a
consolidation
of
the statute law rather than
of
the
common
law.
154
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