Found something i posted over 2 years ago
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=14128968&postcount=150
"In terms of theft as cited in the Theft Act of 1968,
1.— Basic definition of theft.
(1) A person is guilty of theft if he dishonestly appropriates property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it; and “thief” and “steal”shall be construed accordingly.
(2) It is immaterial whether the appropriation is made with a view to gain, or is made for the thief's own benefit.
Short answer is No.
Long Answer ...
‘A person is guilty of theft if he dishonestly appropriates property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it.’
So it is commonly said that there are 5 elements to a section 1 of the Theft Act.
Conduct - Appropriation, Property, Belonging to another
Mens Rea - Dishonesty, Intention to permanently deprive
But the important 2 words you need in order for a Theft charge to stick is Appropriation and Dishonesty. Though looking deeper - Appropriation has lots of appellate cases law, that is the conduct element, the actus. There are the 2 Mens Rea elements; you have to appropriate the property belonging to another dishonestly and with an intention to permanently deprive. As long as the prosecution can prove that intention, doesn’t matter if you later change your mind because the offence is complete. Again the key word here would be Dishonesty, that’s the part that gives rise to most case laws and discussions, academic comments and so on.
Everything you touch in the supermarket is appropriation, as at the time the product does not belong to you. Everything you put into that trolley is all appropriated property, that is because the appellate court including the house of lords have interpreted the theft act in such a way so that the word appropriation includes anything you touch which does not belong to us in law.
Anything we touch, the effect is that this word is virtually meaningless, and that the whole weight of any prosecution is going to rest on the concept of dishonesty. see
R. Lawrence [1972], R. v Morris [1983], R. Gomez [1993]
So we are left with
"Dishonesty". Now that in itself can give rise to problems because there is no definition in the theft act of what the word dishonest means, no statutory definition whatsoever. You will find in the theft act s.2 a few situations where you may be deem not to be dishonest, and that would be for example you had a belief that you own the property, and it was genuine and you had mistaken. You believed the owner would consent, let say your best friend to the person next door, you take the milk left by the milkman when they had gone on holiday, they would be happy for you to do that as it wouldn’t let it go to waste and it wouldn’t give a signal to others that there is no one at home. And the third one is sometimes called finder’s keeper, that’s okay up to a point, it has to be reasonable to keep it, it’s a question for the jury to what’s reasonable. But there is no definition of dishonest as such in the statute, again like so many things in criminal law that has been left to the jury or magistrates.
This might seem sensible, but Prof. Glanville Williams doesn’t think so
‘the practice of leaving the whole matter to the jury might be workable if our society were culturally homogenous with nomad shared values as it once very largely was but the object of the law of theft is to protect property rights and disrespect of these rights is now widespread, since the jury is chosen at random, we have no reason to suppose they would be anymore honest or decent in their standard than the average person, indeed it would not be impossible for them to fail to achieve unanimity or near unanimity except on a standard lower than the average, evidence of the poor level of self discipline now prevailing abounds, and this without takes into the tax defaulters, observers agree on a very large scale of theft, not merely shop lifting and fare bilking but stealing from employers by employees as an assortments of frauds perpetrated upon customers by employees. Great numbers of employed people of all classes believed that systematic dishonestly of varies kind are perk that tolerated by employers provided it does not exceed the ill defined limit.
So highly that some work is valued in practice that a change in the system of work threaten to interfere with it or attempt by employer to prosecute offenders have met by strikes, notable example the strike in Heathrow Airport when baggage loaders were arrested for pilfering in 1973 and the strike of warehousemen in Ipswich docks when police enquire on theft of goods in 1974, 1982 2000 bus drivers were cautioned for pocketing fares and train ticket collectors stole more than 30 million pounds worth in 1 year, London transport were prevent by union resistances by making collectors account honestly for excess fares, if ordinary people in steady of employment developed these lax notions about the right of property, it seems to be the laws of theft is automatically adjusted to suit’.
So it’s basically saying, we are leaving to the jury or magistrates to make a decision on whether a person is or is not guilty of theft, appropriation is virtually gone out of the window because we all appropriate everything always, so it is all depend on the notion of what is dishonest.
Then came
R. v Ghosh [1982], the anaesthetist and he worked from time to time for the NHS and billed them for work he never done. Which gave rise to the
Ghosh test for dishonesty.
Two questions are to be asked of the jury:
1) is the conduct of the accused dishonest, according to the ‘ordinary standards of the reasonable and honest people’.
If the jury answer ‘no’ then the prosecution cases if at an end.
If the jury answer ‘yes’ then the second part of the test clicks in:
2) Did the accused realise that what he was doing way by those standards dishonest?
However, there was an argument put forward the weakness of the Ghosh test; it gave people a so called Robin Hood Defence. The Ghosh test might favour Robin Hood, the jury might not feel it was right to steal from the rich to give to the poor, but they might do if they were all poor, but even they said he was guilty and dishonest in the first instance, in the second instance he could say that’s how he always lived, that to us is the normal a and decent way of living.
Bottomline - If the prosecution can't prove that you have the intention (dishonesty) then you are
not committing theft.
So if you are going to pay for it then, yes you can eat it.
As for Contract law - Offer + Acceptance + Consideration = Contract ? That is a civil offence as we all know, and we are talking about Theft so its chalk and cheese
I guess Tesco will have to sue you for the loss in civil court, which they won't as it'll cost £30 for a small claims action. Cheaper to report you to the police and let the magistrates order you to pay Tesco back the amount instead."
