R v Locker

JurisdictionEngland & Wales
JudgeLORD JUSTICE WIDGERY
Judgment Date06 April 1971
Judgment citation (vLex)[1971] EWCA Crim J0406-4
CourtCourt of Appeal (Criminal Division)
Date06 April 1971
Docket NumberNo. 4895/B/70

[1971] EWCA Crim J0406-4

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL

CRIMINAL DIVISION

Royal Courts of Justice

Before:-

Lord Justice Widgery

Lord Justice Megaw

Mr. Justice Lyell

Mr. Justice Bridge

and

Mr. Justice Shaw

No. 4895/B/70

Regina
and
John Victor Daniel Locker

MR. R. J. S. HARVEY. Q.C. and MR. D. M. FINGLETON appeared as Counsel for the Appellant.

MR. JOHN HAZAN. Q.C. and MR. A. GREEN appeared as Counsel for the Crown.

1

Revised

LORD JUSTICE WIDGERY
2

This Appellant stood his trial on the 11th August, 1970 at Middlesex Quarter Sessions on an indictment containing a number of counts; there were three counts of obtaining money by false pretences, four counts of obtaining money by deception, and further, one count, which was Count No. 8, of obtaining a pecuniary advantage by deception. There was a conviction on each of those counts, and he was sentenced to three years' imprisonment concurrent on each count. He now appeals to this Court by leave of the single Judge against his conviction on Count 8, and his sentence on his indictment as a whole is before the Court on a reference by the Secretary of State under Section 17 of the Criminal Appeal Act 1968.

3

I will outline the very brief facts which are relevant to the conviction on Count 8. They are these: towards the end of September 1969 the Appellant with a Miss Foster, who was then living with him, took a tenancy of rooms in the house of a Mr. Manek. The agreement was that the rent was to be 16 guineas a week, and it was to be paid every four weeks in advance. They went into possession on the 4th October, 1969; they did not initially pay the month's rent in advance which was then due, but that sum, namely £65 for the month of October, was in due course paid. On the 1st November there became due a further four weeks' rent for the ensuing month, and Mr. Manek, the landlord, being dissatisfied with the conduct of the Appellant, gave him four weeks notice to quit, the notice to run from the 29th November, 1969, and to expire at a date late in December that year. It followed that on and from the 29th November, 1969 the Appellant owed Mr. Manek two months rent, the rent which ought to have been paid in respect of November and the four weeks rent due on the 29th November for the four weeks in which the notice was running.

4

On the 5th December when an obligation to pay £130 had already accrued in respect of those matters, the Appellant gave to Mr. Manek a cheque for that sum, £130, drawn upon a bank where he had had an account with a modest balance, and where at the relevant time he had no account. The cheque was returned in due course from the bank marked "no account". The short, but extremely important, issue of law which is raised in this appeal against conviction is whether on those bare facts it was open to the Jury to convict the Appellant of an offence under Section 16 of the Theft Act 1968, which is in these terms, so far as material: "(1) A person who by any deception dishonestly obtains for himself or another any pecuniary advantage shall on conviction on indictment be liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years. (2) The oases in which a pecuniary advantage within the meaning of this section is to be regarded as obtained for a person are cases whore - (a) any debt or charge for which he makes himself liable or is or may become liable (including one not legally enforceable) is reduced or in whole or in part evaded or deferred".

5

The case for the Grown in this matter was that by giving the cheque which the Appellant knew was a worthless cheque to Mr. Manek, the Appellant dishonestly and by deception caused the payment of that debt to be deferred. The ground is largely new because there is only one other case which has been cited to us in which the terms of Section 16 have been considered, and it is an anxious matter for the Court, because it is common ground that the events which I have outlined would not have been a criminal offence under the law as it stood before the passing of the 1968 Act. When a new Act produces, or appears to produce, criminal responsibility in new circumstances, it behoves the Court to look with particular care at those circumstances.

6

We think that there is no doubt, looking at the Act as a whole, that the intention is to broaden criminal responsibility rather than to restrict it, but that is by no means an answer to the specific problem which faces us now, of the interpretation of a particular section.

7

In the argument of Counsel, for which the Court is much indebted, a considerable distinction has been sought to be made between deferring a debt and deferring payment of a debt. There is a trace, or indeed more than a trace of this distinction in the earlier case to which I have referred, the case of Regina v. Page decided in this Court on the 26th January, 1971. Much contention has been raised as to whether, when applying Section 16, we are concerned to see whether the debt has been deferred, or whether all that has happened has been to defer the payment of the debt. This Court considers that the distinction drawn between deferment of the debt and deferment of payment of the debt is a misleading and unsatisfactory one. In the context of a debt, the only feature of the transaction which involves time is the time for performance, the time at which the debt is to be paid. We are unable to assist ourselves in the elucidation of this problem by trying to draw distinctions between deferring a debt as opposed to deferring payment. It is, we think, in the end a question of whether payment has been deferred to which the section is directed, and to which our decision in turn must apply.

8

Mr. Harvey has contended that in order to amount to an offence under this section, it is necessary for the Prosecution to show that the debtor and creditor have put their heads together; have reached a new enforcible agreement whereby the...

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8 cases
  • R v Turner
    • United Kingdom
    • Court of Appeal (Criminal Division)
    • 29 March 1973
    ...cheque for cash. The Court of Appeal held that he was properly convicted in the case of each cheque of "evading" a debt by deception. 10 In LOCKER (1971) 2 Weekly Law Reports 1302, a tenant who owed rent to his landlord, gave the latter a cheque for the amount duo, knowing that he had no fu......
  • R v Turner
    • United Kingdom
    • House of Lords
    • 25 July 1973
    ...the hirer of the car to accept cheques in place of cash the accused evaded his obligation to pay in legal tender. 14The next case was Reg. v. Locker [1971] 2 Q.B. 321, which was decided in April, 1971. There a cheque was given by a tenant for rent which was overdue. It was drawn on a Bank ......
  • R v Royle
    • United Kingdom
    • Court of Appeal (Criminal Division)
    • 9 November 1971
    ...at page 457); and during this year it has led to two decisions, R. v. Page reported in 1971 Criminal Appeal Reports at page 184, and R. v. Locker in the same volume at page 375, the former of which has, in the view of Professor J.C. Smith (1971 Criminal Law Review at page 424), been "implie......
  • R v Fazackerley
    • United Kingdom
    • Court of Appeal (Criminal Division)
    • 16 March 1973
    ...not be convicted. The Appellant in fact evaded these six debts, that is to say, the payment of these debts: Page approved "on that point" in Locker (1971) 2 Queen's Bench 321, 329E, 330 note of that report, but he did not, it is submitted, obtain that evasion by giving "dud" cheques. To obt......
  • Request a trial to view additional results
3 books & journal articles
  • ENLARGED PANELS IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF SINGAPORE
    • Singapore
    • Singapore Academy of Law Journal No. 2019, December 2019
    • 1 December 2019
    ...1 QB 979; Ward v James [1966] 1 QB 273; R v Anderson [1966] 2 QB 110; R v Assim [1966] 2 QB 249; R v Newsome [1970] 2 QB 711; R v Locker [1971] 2 QB 321; Jones v Secretary of State for Social Services [1972] AC 944; R v Lillis [1972] 2 QB 236; R v Breeze [1973] 1 WLR 994; R v Medway [1976] ......
  • Money for nothing, cheques for free? The meaning of 'financial advantage' in fraud offences.
    • Australia
    • Melbourne University Law Review Vol. 31 No. 1, April 2007
    • 1 April 2007
    ...the cheque be paid on presentation: if it is dishonoured the debt upon the original consideration revives.' (99) See, eg, R v Locker [1971] 2 QB 321 ('Locker'); R v Page [1971] 2 QB 330; R v Fazackerley [1973] 2 All ER 819; R v Turner [1973] 2 All ER (100) [1974] AC 357. (101) Section 16(2)......
  • Recent Judicial Decisions
    • United Kingdom
    • Police Journal: Theory, Practice and Principles No. 75-2, April 2002
    • 1 April 2002
    ...this court in RvWaterfall [1969] 3 All ER 1048; and during this yearithasled to two decisions, RvPage [1971] 2 All ER 870 and RvLocker [1971] 2 All ER 875, the former of which has, in theview of Professor JC Smith (see [1971] 2 All ER at 880;[1971] 2 WLR at 1308) been 'impliedly overruled' ......

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