Theft or Sharp Practice: Who Cares Now?

Extract

The House of Lords has upheld, by a majority, the decision of the Court of Appeal in Hinks [2000] 3 W.L.R. 1590 (noted (1999) 58 C.L.J. 10), giving a positive answer to the certified question: “Whether the acquisition of an indefeasible title to property is capable of amounting to an appropriation of property belonging to another for the purposes of section 1(1) of the Theft Act 1968”. The appellant had persuaded a somewhat simple-minded man to make her the “gift” of a quite considerable sum of money. No deception was alleged to have been employed, and so far as the civil law was concerned, the “gift” might well have been a perfectly valid transaction; the question was never determined by the jury, because it was deemed to be irrelevant by the trial judge. But the decision of the House of Lords is to the effect that she was properly convicted of theft however that question might have been answered. So, it would seem, a person may become the indefeasible owner of property and nevertheless be accounted a thief of that very same property, and by the very act of acquiring the ownership of it.