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Allen, R v (1985) HL |
^[Making off - intent permanently to avoid payment]
D
left a hotel without paying his bill of £1,286. D claimed he genuinely
expected to pay the bill and intended merely to defer payment until he
received the proceeds of certain business deals.
Held: The words 'with intent to avoid payment' required an intention to
avoid payment permanently and an intention to defer payment did not suffice
to establish the offence.
Lord Hailsham:
"To secure a conviction under
section 3 the following must be proved: (1) that the defendant in fact made
off without making payment on the spot; (2) the following mental elements —
(a) knowledge that payment on the spot was required or expected of him; and
(b) dishonesty; and (c) intent to avoid payment [sc. 'Of the amount due']."
Not
guilty |
|
Aziz, R v (1993) CA |
[Making off without
payment - 'the spot' is where payment should be made]
D requested a taxi driver to take him to a club 13 miles away. On arrival D
refused to pay the £15 fare claiming that the journey was only four miles. The
taxid driver
at first started to take them back to their hotel, then took them to the police station where he ran out of the taxi.
Held: The TA 1978 did not require payment be made on any particular spot.
'On the spot' related to the knowledge that the customer had as to when
payment should be made.
In the case of a taxi, payment may be made whilst sitting in the car or
standing at the window but the fares were requested when the customer was
still in the car. The obligation to pay continued even when being taken back
to the hotel.
'On the spot' was not necessarily the final destination of
the journey.
Guilty
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|
Brooks and Brooks (1982) CA |
[Making off without payment - "making off" given ordinary meaning]
D1
and D2 had a meal with S in the upstairs room of a
restaurant. D1 left the restaurant in a hurry. The manager went upstairs
and found S in the toilet. D2 also
tried to leave but was caught by the manager.
Held: The words 'dishonestly makes off' should be given their ordinary
meaning and the jury should relate these words to the facts of any case.
'Making off' required departure from the spot where payment was required.
"... making off ... may be an exercise accompanied by the sound of trumpets
or the silent stealing away after the folding of tents."
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Collis-Smith, R v [1971] CA |
[Making off - why the offence was created]
D filled his car with petrol (ownership therefore passing to him) he then
falsely indicated that his employer would pay for it.
Held: He had not obtained by deception, ownership already having
passed at the time he practised his deception.
Not guilty under the previous part of the
Theft Act 1968
He
would now be charged with evading liability by deception
section 2 Theft Act 1978 |
|
Edwards v Ddin [1976] QBD |
^[Making off - intent formed after service provided - why the offence was created]
D drove to a garage and asked the
attendant to put in oil and water in his mini, when the attendant went to
clean her hands D drove off
without paying. Payment was never discussed or offered.
Held: Property passes under a contract of sale when it is intended to
pass. The garage and the motorist intended the property in the petrol to
pass when it is poured into the tank and irretrievably mixed with the other
petrol that is in it. Thus D could not have appropriated the property
of another and was therefore not guilty of theft.
Not guilty
Also here
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Ghosh, R v (1982) CA |
^[Dishonesty – two limb test]
D a
surgeon was filling in as a consultant at a hospital. He pretended that he had himself carried out surgical operations and that
money was due to him. The operations had, in fact, been carried out under the
NHS by someone else.
Held: In determining whether D was acting dishonestly, the jury had
first whether according to the standards of the ordinary reasonable what was
done was dishonest.
If
it was, the jury must then consider whether D himself must have realised
that what he was doing was dishonest by the standards of the ordinary
reasonable person.
Guilty |
|
Greenberg, R v [1972] Friend J |
^[Making off - why the offence was created]
D filled up his petrol tank honestly intending to pay, changed his mind and
drove off.
Held: Property passes under a contract of sale when it is intended to
pass. The garage and the motorist intended the property in the petrol to
pass when it flowed from the pump to the tank and irretrievably mixed with
the other petrol that is in it. Thus D could not have appropriated the
property of another because it belonged to him and was therefore not guilty
of theft.
Not guilty |
|
Halai, R v [1983] CA |
[Making off - mortgage advance is not a service]
D
sought a mortgage advance by deception, as a result a survey was conducted
of the property. This was clearly a benefit to D as it indicated that the
house was security for the projected loan.
Held: This was not a service but a lending of money for property.
Not guilty
This case had been highly criticised and was distinguished in
Widdowson
where D attempted to enter into a hire purchase agreement by deception.
Halai has "all the hallmarks of a decision
per incuriam"
but remains the law, but probably only for events prior to 1996 when the
Theft (Amendment) Act was implemented. |
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Hammond, R v [1982] Morrison J |
[Making off - worthless cheques - not this offence]
D was 'allowed' to leave after presenting a cheque, which proved to be
worthless.
Held: V had allowed D to leave and therefore he had not 'made off'.
Not
guilty
(Smith & Hogan believe D to still be guilty because he had not paid "as
required or expected") |
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MacDavitt, R v (1981) CC |
[Making off without payment - payment on the spot]
D
had a meal with some friends but refused to pay the bill. He started
to leave but did not do so when he
was told the police had been called. D admitted he intended to leave the
restaurant without paying.
Held: 'Makes off' refers to making off from the spot where the payment
is required or expected.
What that spot is depends on the facts in any
case. In this case, the spot was the restaurant and he did not leave the
restaurant.
Not
guilty |
|
Moberley v Alsop (1991) QBD |
[Making off - where is the "spot"]
If D travels on a public transport system without a ticket and dishonestly
makes off when required to produce one, it will be no defence to argue that
payment should have been made before the journey began. An honest passenger
inadvertently travelling without a ticket would of course be expected to pay
during or after the journey.
Held: Payment "on the spot" is not confined to the premises, it is simply
the place where payment is required. |
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|
^[Making off -
why the offence is needed]
D left the Wing Wah restaurant without paying for his meal. When the meal was ordered D
intended to pay for it. After eating it, D changed his mind and decided to
leave without paying for it. D waited for the waiter to leave the room (about
10 minutes) and then ran off from the restaurant, and hid when the police were
called.
D argued that he had
not, by words or conduct, made a false representation.
Held: D had made a false representation by conduct.
Guilty (under sec 16 but ratio applicable to sec 15)
This case went to the House
of Lords over a .47p chop suey and fried rice and received different opinions
by the 3 magistrates and 8 judges involved. The defendant having been
convicted, acquitted and then the conviction restored. If the offence of
Making Off had been available to the prosecutor it would have more suitable.
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Troughton v Metropolitan Police (1987) QBD |
[Making off - as required or expected - contract not legally unenforceable ]
D
took a taxi home. Being drunk he had not told the driver
his full address. The driver stopped to obtain directions and D
accused the driver of making an unnecessary diversion. The taxi driver
drove to the nearest police station.
Held: The journey was not completed and the taxi driver had breached
the
contract.
The offence of "making off" requires the payment to be legally enforceable.
Therefore, the taxi driver was unable to demand the fare after he
had diverted from the proper route to D's destination.
Not
guilty |
|
Vincent, R v [2001] CA
Whole case,
here |
^[Making off - payment
required or expected]
D left two hotels without paying his £1,300 bills. D
claimed that he was waiting for money for TV and newspaper work and that the
hotel owner had agreed that he would not have to pay them on departure. Payment had therefore not been "expected" of him for the purposes of
s.3 (1).
Held: Expectation that "payment on the spot"
would be made had been defeated by the alleged agreements, even though those
agreements might have been obtained by deception.
The fact that the agreement was obtained
dishonestly does not reinstate the expectation. While the customer would be
liable to be charged with obtaining services by deception, if he continued to
stay at the hotel with that dishonest intention, he would not infringe
section 3.
Not guilty
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