R v Hall
A person who receives money must be under an obligation to deal with that particular money in a particular way for it to belong to another under section 5(3).
Facts
Mr Hall was a travel agent who received deposits from customers for air trips to America. He paid the money into his firm's general bank account, and the trips never took place. He did not repay the deposits, because he had spent the money on his business. He was convicted of theft, on the basis that the money belonged to the customers under section 5(3) of the Theft Act 1968.
Legal principle
The Court of Appeal quashed the convictions. Section 5(3) applies where a person receives property from another and is under an obligation to the other to retain and deal with that property or its proceeds in a particular way. Mr Hall had not been under an obligation to keep the deposits separate or to use those particular funds for the customers' trips, so the money became his, and he could not be guilty of stealing it. Edmund Davies LJ said that Mr Hall had behaved badly, but that his conduct was not theft.
Related cases on theft, robbery, burglary and fraud
- Attorney General's Reference (No 1 of 1983) [1985] QB 182
- Corcoran v Anderton (1980) 71 Cr App R 104
- Ivey v Genting Casinos (UK) Ltd [2017] UKSC 67, [2018] AC 391
- Lawrence v Metropolitan Police Commissioner [1972] AC 626
- Oxford v Moss (1979) 68 Cr App R 183
- R v Barton and Booth [2020] EWCA Crim 575, [2021] QB 685
- R v Collins [1973] QB 100
- R v Ghosh [1982] QB 1053
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