Theft Act 1968
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| Criminal law in English law |
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History
The Theft Act 1968 resulted from the efforts of the Criminal Law Revision Committee to reform the English law of theft. The Larceny Act 1916 had codified the common law, including larceny itself, but it remained a complex web of offences. The intention of the Theft Act 1968, was to replace the existing law of larceny and other deception-related offences, by a single enactment, creating a more coherent body of principles that would allow the law to evolve to meet new situations. The Act received the Royal Assent on 26 July 1968.
Offences Created
A number of greatly simplified — or at least less complicated — offences were created which all incorporate the element of dishonesty:
- all the variety of larcenies and conversion in the Larceny Act 1916 were brought into a single offence as defined in s1 of theft;
- aggravated forms of theft involving the threat or use of violence were consolidated under s8 into robbery;
- burglary and all the different forms of housebreaking, shopbreaking, etc were captured under s9 as the single heading of burglary;
- specific offences were created in s12 to cover the taking of bicycles and TWOC to cover the offence of joy-riding or sitting in the car while another drives it away without the owner's consent:
- abstracting electricity — the "theft" of electricity which had been included in the Act 1916 was retained in s13;
- for historically valid but now redundant reasons, a specific offence was created to protect art galleries, museums, etc;
- the basic pattern of deception offences was established in the Act 1968, and then amended in the Theft Act 1978 and the Theft (Amendment) Act 1996 which addressed some of the problems that had arisen in the enforcement of the law (for the definition of ''deception, see criminal deception). There are now five offences, namely:
- (a) obtaining property by deception under s15 Theft Act 1968;
- (b) obtaining a money transfer by deception under ss15A and 15B Theft Act 1968 (see Act 1996);
- (c) obtaining a pecuniary advantage by deception under s16 Theft Act 1968;
- (d) obtaining services by deception under s1 Theft Act 1978; and
- (e) evasion of liability by deception under s2 Theft Act 1978;
- It is also an offence to make off without paying. This does not require a deception.
References
- Allen, Michael. Textbook on Criminal Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (2005) ISBN 0199279187.
- Criminal Law Revision Committee. 8th Report. Theft and Related Offences. Cmnd. 2977
- Griew, Edward. Theft Acts 1968 & 1978, Sweet & Maxwell. ISBN 0421199601
- Ormerod, David. Smith and Hogan Criminal Law, 11th Ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press. (2005) ISBN 0406977305
- Smith, J. C. Law of Theft, LexisNexis: London. (1997) ISBN 0406895457
External links
[Text of the Act] (note: may not be up to date)
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