One of the most significant current discussions in the legal field is the arisen uncertainty of several areas when defining terms, statutory acts, phrases or even specific words of English law in courts, which some do not have a specific definition. For example, ‘dishonesty’ is not specifically defined rather, negatively defined i.e. showing what dishonesty is not, instead of what dishonesty is. However, one question that needs to be asked, is whether the law surrounding theft, robbery and burglary have been drafted as to leave out ambiguity. The aim of this paper is to critically examine the law relating to theft, robbery and burglary accordingly to the statement by J.R. Spencer from Lloyds, “…sprouts obscurities at every phrase…”. Throughout the paper, relevant case law will be applied …show more content…
One would be found guilty if he steals immediately before or after the time of doing so. As robbery can be consented, AR of theft must be present, adding one of the three activities; uses force, puts or seeks to put anyone in fear and ‘MR for theft’ must be present.
Burglary is committed when a trespasser enters any building, with intent to commit theft and grievous bodily harm or criminal damage. There are two types of burglary. The AR of burglary consists of three elements; trespass, entry and ‘a building or part of a building’. The MR of burglary is specifically stated by Edmund Davies LJ: “…a serious offence like burglary should require MR in the fullest sense of the phrase: D should be liable for burglary only if he knowingly trespasses or is reckless as to whether he trespasses or not” in Collins.
Two criticisms described by Mitchell are that burglary and robbery are barely defined that the current law is unable to identify crimes of multiple wrongdoing. He also suggests that new offences that consist of one or more omission should be
R N Howie and P A Johnson, Annotated Criminal Legislation NSW, 2011-2102, (Lexis Nexis Butterworths 2012) 17769-1774
Under common law some many years ago, burglary was the breaking and entering of a dwelling during the night for the purposes of committing a felony or a larceny (Bernasco and Luykx 2003). Under common law, there were a couple reasons for this specific definition of burglary. First, as Bernasco put it, breaking is the act of creating an opening by disabling any part of the dwelling meant to serve as a prevention tool against intrusion. Secondly, nighttime was an important element of burglary by common law standards; law-makers viewed people as unable to protect themselves during the middle of the night. Under common law, it was not enough to merely enter a dwelling, the act of breaking had to exist; if the entry occurs through an unlocked door, then burgl...
Between the years of 1714 and 1799 the rate of theft in London increased for many reasons. The method of research use to prove this hypothesis was Old Bailey online. Old Bailey is a court in the city of London in the county of Middlesex. The court is held eight times a year for the trial of prisoners; the crimes tried in this court are high and petty treason, petty larceny, murder, felony, burglary, etc. The goal of this paper is to prove that not only did theft increase, but also why it increased. My preliminary findings suggest that overall theft did increase, and that the main causes for this were: political, economical, and social problems.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Uniform Crime Reporting program defines burglary as “the unlawful entry of a structure to commit a felony or theft. To classify an offense as a burglary, the use of force to gain entry need not have occurred” (Federal Bureau of Investigation,¶1). Peop...
Kelling, George L. Thinking About Crime: Is There a Right to Beg? 1993. Web. 10 December 2013.
Major problems were experienced in the early years after the Act over how the preserved common law conspiracy to defraud dovetailed with the new statutory conspiracy to commit a crime as frequently, an agreement to defraud will necessarily involve an agreement to commit a substantive offence entailing dishonesty such as theft or the new offence of fr...
Over the years, different jurisdictions had built their specific system of rules of conduct to govern behaviour. These legal systems, influenced by historical and cultural roots, can be distinguished in two families, the Civil law and the Common law legal systems. The distinctions lies in the process in which each decision is make by the judge and on the legal sources that shapes the law. Indeed, by contrast to the Common law system, which is largely based on Precedents, meaning the decisions that have already been made by judges in similar cases, the Civil law system is based on legislator’s decisions and legal codes with which judges have to justify their judgment . Consequently, instead of referencing to concepts and rules
Lippman, M. (2012). Contemporary Criminal Law Concepts, Cases and Controversies (3rd ed.). [Vitalsouce Bookshelf version]. Retrieved from http://online.vitalsource.com/books/9781452277660/5/3
Ashworth A and Horder J, Principles of Criminal Law (7th edn, Oxford University Press 2013)
This theory can be used to explain why an offender will decide to commit burglary, robbery, aggravated assault, or murder. It is 9:00am on a warm July morning. John Smith is dropped off near an affluent neighborhood. He creeps down a side street and enters the back yard of a large home. John uses a pry bar he had hidden in his pants to break open the door.
The English legal system is ostensibly embedded on a foundation of a ‘high degree of certainty with adaptability’ based on a steady ‘mode’ of legal reasoning. This rests on four propositions
Throughout the history of what is now part of most state statutes, theft laws have made significant progressions. The beginning of the modern idea of theft began long ago with the growing concerns of the violent crimes against persons (Samaha, 2015, p. 433). These concerns the people of the time shared, lead to the creation of the felony robbery, within common law (Samaha, 2015, p. 433). The idea behind robbery was, “taking property by force or the threat of force” (Samaha, 2015, p. 433). The creation of this law within the idea of crimes against persons lead to the next big jump towards the criminal action of theft.
United Kingdom is a country with a distinctive set of legal system. It is fairly different from other countries having civil law based legal systems. The legal system in the United Kingdom consists of various sources of law, where other civil law based countries rely only on a written set of law. European influences on the English Legal System came much later in near decades. This essay will aim to examine the development of the English Legal System by reviewing applications of various sources of law in the English Legal System furthermore to discuss the recent European influences on the law of England.
The courts of England and Wales acknowledge that the above must be something of value, in order to amount to consideration. A valuable consideration in the perspective of the English La...
Over the past hundred years management has continuously been evolving. There have been a wide range of approaches in how to deal with management or better yet how to improve management functions in our ever changing environment. From as early as 1100 B.C managers have been struggling with the same issues and problems that manager’s face today. Modern managers use many of the practices, principles, and techniques developed from earlier concepts and experiences.