Reforming Theft: Taking Without Consent

Foundations of
Criminal Law (CW- 1)

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
The criminal law concerns the offences, its prevention and the consequences in the
English legal system. A criminal conduct can be referred to as the wrong which is committed
against the whole community rather than the private individual. In order to prevent the criminal
offences, the state and the international organisations are responsible to bring the culprits down
to the justice. The theft Act of the !968 has some common offences which includes the theft
itself, false accounting, handling stolen property, burglary, blackmail and robbery. This report
cover the article of reforming theft- taking without consent.
MAIN BODY
Theft is a criminal offence which is being described under the Theft Act, 1968 which
states that a person can be guilty of the offence of theft if it dishonestly appropriate the property
of the other with the intention to deprive the other permanently1. The actus reus of the theft
includes appropriation, belonging to the other and the property and on the other hand the mens
rea of theft includes intention to deprive the other person and the term dishonestly. The elements
of the theft involves the following-
 Appropriation of the property.
 The property must belong to other person.
 The intention of the culprit must be to deprive the person of its property.
 The property must be dishonestly appropriated.
The article by Dr Nathan Tamblyn provides that the theft law needs reformation as it is
based on dishonesty and not the consent. The main legal issues which this article highlights is
that
 Whether the current law of theft needs reformation?
 Whether the law of theft which is based on dishonesty lacks the common sense ?
 Whether the new law of theft which supports consent fulfil the criteria to justify the
offence of theft ?
The term dishonesty is meant as an act which shows deceitful behaviour or character of
the person. This t6erm is defined under the Theft Act which does not give definition but the
1 Padfield N, Criminal Law (2018)