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Your honour, it is the case of the defence that the defendant, Jane Doyle, did not commit the
offence of theft. The defence contends that: for an act to be construed as theft, the two elements
must be present viz: mens rea (guilty mind) and actus reus (guilty act). More so, pursuant to Section
1 (1) of The Theft Act, 1986 which explicitly detailed what would amount to a theft stated and I
quote in verbatim:

“A person is guilty of theft if he dishonestly appropriates property belonging to

By the aforementioned statutory definition it can be seen that before an accused would be
guilty of the offence of theft, he must have the “mens rea” herewith “intention" to take something
that belongs to another person couple with the “actus reus" the “act l" of appropriating the same
property belonging to another person with the view of depriving the person of it. In other words, a
person would be guilty of theft if he or she appropriated permanently, in a dishonest manner,
property that belongs to another with the resolution of depriving the person of the aforesaid
property.

To further buttress this point, recourse has to be made to the celebrated case of Lawrence v
Metropolitan Police Commissioner (1972) AC 626 where an Italian student took a taxi ride for which
the proper fare was about 50p. He offered the defendant a £1 note, but the defendant said more
money was needed and proceeded to take a further £1 note and a £5 note from the student’s open
wallet. The defendant was convicted of theft and appealed unsuccessfully to the House of Lords. The
defendant argued that he had not stolen the money because the victim had consented to its being
taken by him.

The honourable court, seated, Viscount Dilhorne rejected this argument because the student only
consented to the amount being taken and also the defendant’s contention that he should have been
charged under Section 15 of the The Theft Act, 1968 which is obtaining property by deception and
not Section 1 of the The Theft Act, 1968. The court further established that: for an act to be
construed as theft, it must have the following elements:

(1) Dishonesty
(2) Appropriation
(3) There must be property
(4) It must belong to another person
(5) There must be an intention to permanently deprive the owner of it

In a similar tone, in R v Morris (1983) 3 WLR 697 where The defendants were convicted of theft
under Section 11of the Theft Act 1968 after switching the labels on products in a supermarket to
obtain a lower price. One of the defendants was caught before he paid, while the other was only
caught afterwards. The issue was whether the act of the defendant amounted to theft and it was
established by Section 1 of the Theft Act, 1968 that the act would construed as theft and by Section
3 of the Theft Act, 1968 defined appropriation as “any assumption by a person of the rights of an
owner” and this was what the defendant exhibited.

The court held inter alia: They held that the owners of the goods had a right to ensure that they were
sold for the price the owner chose, which the defendants usurped when they switched the labels to
be able to pay less. This amounted to an assumption of the owners’ rights, and therefore an
appropriation.

A simila decision was held in the case of R v Ghosh (1982).

From the foregoing, Jane Doyle, a 28 years old widow as reveled in the fact in respect of the
£38,000 which she was charged, did not exhibit the criteria set out under Section 1 of the Theft Act,
1968 neither neither did she act maliciously held in the cases enumerated above. On the contrary,
Arthur, a 83 years old man realized how deteriorated the financial status of Jane, proposed to Jane
to clean his house and graciously gave her money to take care of needs at home which the accused
earlier rejected but the insistence of Arthur made her change her mind. Thus, Jane never foisted on,
coerced or maliciously/dishonestly appropriated £38,000 from Arthur. Therefore, the accusation
was unfounded and detrimental to Jane’s reputation.

Your honour, it is the case of the defence that the defendant, Jane, a 28 years old widow, did
not commit the offence of theft as defined by Section 1 of the Theft Act 1968 neither did she exhibit
any act in respect of £38,000 she was accused that would be tantamount to “appropriation” as
succinctly defined in Section 3 of the Theft Act, 1968 which defined appropriation to be:

(1) Any assumption by a person of the rights of an owner amounts to an appropriation, and this
includes, where he has come by the property (innocently or not) without stealing it, any later
assumption of a right to it by keeping or dealing with it as owner.

(2) Where property or a right or interest in property is or purports to be transferred for value to a
person acting in good faith, no later assumption by him of rights which he believed himself to be
acquiring shall, by reason of any defect in the transferor’s title, amount to theft of the property.

By the provision of this act, where the first part suggests that any assumption of ownership by a
person, even if he obtained the property, can be considered an appropriation. This means that if
someone acquires property without stealing but later assumes the right to keep or deal with it as the
owner , it can still be seen as an if appropriation.

The second part of the statement discusses the transfer of property or rights for value to a person
acting in good faith. It states that if someone acquires property or a right in property in exchange for
something of value and they genuinely believe they are acquiring those rights, any later assumption
of those rights will not be considered theft, even if there is a defect in the transferor's title.

From the foregoing provision(s) and explanations, the defence contends that Jane Doyle did
not, in respect of the £38,000 in which she was accused, appropriate the aforesaid money
dishonestly, and she had not acted in a dishonest way by the standards of ‘ordinary and decent
people.’ By the standard of “ordinary people", it means she did not behave dishonestly according to
the standards of ordinary and decent people. To critically analyze this, it is important to consider
what constitutes dishonest behavior and how it is perceived by society. Dishonesty can be defined as
intentionally deceiving or misleading others for personal gain or to avoid negative consequences.
The standards of ordinary and decent people may vary depending on cultural, social, and ethical
norms. What may be considered dishonest in one society or community might be acceptable in
another.

Thus, in R v Barton (2020) EWCA CRIM 575. In that case, Mr. Barton was the owner of a luxury care
home where, by all accounts, residents were well cared for, and Ms Booth was his manager. It was
alleged that together Mr Barton and Ms Booth ‘groomed’ elderly and wealthy residents, who, while
they had the capacity to make decisions about their affairs and apparently entered into transactions
willingly, were vulnerable. Complainants were allegedly selected because they did not have any
family and Mr Booth and Ms Barton caused them to be isolated from their friends and trusted
professional advisers. Mr Booth and Ms Barton were alleged to have charged fees, provided
services, and sold goods, including Rolls-Royce motor cars, to the complainants at vastly over-
inflated prices. They also received financial payments, loans, and gifts from the complainants and,
soon after their arrival at the nursing home, became beneficiaries of their wills or allowed Mr Barton
to assume control of their finances. Mr Barton and Ms Booth’s case was that the complainants
willingly gave genuine gifts and made payments for legitimate fees. Ms Booth further contended
that she had no dealings with the care home’s or residents’ finances. The overall value of the alleged
fraud ran into many millions. Mr Barton was convicted of four counts of conspiracy to defraud, three
counts of theft, one count of fraud, one count of false accounting, and one count of transferring
criminal property. Ms Booth was convicted of three counts of conspiracy to defraud. They both
appealed their convictions. The judgment of the five-member Court of Appeal, including the Lord
Chief Justice Lord Burnett, was that their convictions were not unsafe. Mr Barton’s sentence of 21
years imprisonment was however found to be manifestly excessive and was reduced to 17 years.

Nonetheless, the Court of Appeal set out test for dishonesty in all criminal cases as well as civil cases,
set out in the orbiter of comments of Lord Hughes in the Supreme Court case of Ivey v Genting
Ccasinos (2018) 2 ALL ER 406 , as follows:

1. What was the defendant’s actual state of knowledge or belief as to the facts?
2. Was the defendant’s conduct dishonest by the standards of ordinary decent people?

This was a departure from the test established by the Court of Appeal in R v Ghosh [1982] EWCA
Crim 2 which was as follows:

1. Was the defendant’s conduct dishonest by standards of reasonable/honest people?

From the cited authorities, Jane Doyle did not act in a dishonest way by the standard of “ordinary
people".