Theft Act Analysis

Theft is a complex crime requiring the assessment of five separate components before a conviction can be obtained. In 1968, the Theft Act 1968 was passed. This Act was a new code that swept away the pervious law in the Larceny Act 1916 creating a new range of offences which were framed to avoid the technicality and complexity of the old law. In 1978, the Theft Act 1978 was passed to replace s16 (2)(a) of the Theft Act 1968 which had proved highly unsatisfactory. The Theft Act 1978 also contains other provisions to fill some gaps left by the previous Act. The Theft Acts 1968 and 1978 created a range of offences that contains the common element that the proscribed consequence is brought about as a result of the accused’s dishonest deception.

Thus, according to Lord Roskill, the ‘mere removal’ of goods from a supermarket shelf ‘without more’ is not an appropriation. This suggestion therefore appears to be that appropriation is an unauthorized act, because the removal of goods on the supermarket shelf is done because of the authorization of the shop owners. That implied authority continues with the honest shopper as he or she wheels their trolley around the store until arrival at the checkout when on payment of the appropriate amount of money the goods will be handed to the shopper. In Morris , appeals heard by the House that were of regards to dishonest shoppers in supermarkets. The appellants had taken goods from the selves of a supermarket and removed the price labels substituting lower priced labels that had been taken from the other goods on offer within the store. Both appellants were charged with theft, one having been apprehended having paid the price that was lower and the other as he was at the checkout. The appeals were based on the argument that their acts were inconsistent with appropriation’s true meaning in that switching price labels did not amount to an assumption of owner’s

Lawrence rejected the argument that there could not have been theft if the property man owner had authorized the acts that were done by the defendant. Lord Roskill’s support for Lawrence appears to have been contradicted by his own speech in Morris, cited earlier, where he refers to appropriation as something that has not been ‘expressly or impliedly authorized by the owner’. It could have been said that the statement by Lord Roskill is strictly obiter because the House agreed that appropriation only took place when the labels were switched, not when the goods were removed, not when the goods were removed from the shelves. This flatly contradicts the Court of Appeal view to the effect that the appropriation took place when the goods were removed but before the label switching. The reasoning behind the Court of Appeal’s decision is that even though the taking was authorized, it was taken not for any lawful purpose but for the defendant’s own