R v Kovacs
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | LORD JUSTICE LAWTON |
| Judgment Date | 21 December 1973 |
| Judgment citation (vLex) | [1973] EWCA Crim J1221-3 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) |
| Docket Number | No. 3800/C/73 |
| Date | 21 December 1973 |
[1973] EWCA Crim J1221-3
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL
CRIMINAL DIVISION
Royal Courts of Justice
Lord Justice Lawton
Lord Justice James
and
Mr. Justice Michael Davies
No. 3800/C/73
MR. G. RICH appeared on-behalf of the Appellant.
MR. T.H. BERRY appeared on behalf of the Crown.
On the 20th July, 1973 at Aylesbury Crown Court, after a trial before His Honour Judge Yerney and a jury, the Appellant was convicted of a number of offences of dishonesty. She asked for five other offences to be taken into consideration. She was sentenced on the indictment to two years' imprisonment on each count, the sentences to run concurrently. She was also sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment to run concurrently with the other sentences for breach of a probation order made on the 22nd November, 1971 in respect of five offences of obtaining property by deception.
She applied to this Court for leave to appeal against all her convictions. This application was considered by the single Judge, who granted her leave to appeal against her convictions on Counts 12, 14 and 19, but refused leave in respect of the other convictions. She has not renewed her application to the full Court in respect of this refusal.
It follows that this Court has been concerned with only a small part of the whole case against the Appellant, and the appeal on that part can only have been of very limited interest to her because she must have appreciated that success in it was unlikely to reduce in any way the length of her sentence. She had clearly behaved dishonestly in respect of the conduct upon which Counts 12, 14 and 19 were based. The only question for this Court was whether the offences charged were appropriate for the conduct proved.
The Statement of Offence in all three counts was the same: obtaining a pecuniary advantage by deception, contrary to Section 16(1) of the Theft Act, 1968. The particulars of offence under Count 12 amounted to an allegation that she had given a worthless cheque to a taxi driver in payment of her fare. Whether conduct such as this amounted to obtaining a pecuniary advantage by deception was widely discussed before the decision of the House of Lords in Director of Public Prosecutions v. Turner (1973) 3 All England Reports 124. That case resolved such doubts as there were about committing an offence under Section 16(1) of the Theft Act, 1968 in this v/ay. When this appeal was called on counsel for the Appellant told us that he accepted that Turner made it impossible for him to argue that the Appellant had not committed the offence charged. It follows that the conviction on Count 12 must stand.
The convictions on Counts 14 and 19 were not covered by the decision in Turner. Save for amounts and dates the particulars of offence in Counts 14 and 19 were the same. On arraignment these counts were put to her in this form: "That on (date...
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