The defendant was charged with obtaining a valuable security by false pretences, on the basis that he had presented a bill to the prosecutor who accepted it and returned it to the defendant, his acceptance having been induced by false pretences on the part of the defendant.
Held: In these circumstances the defendant was not guilty of the offence because, before the document came into his possession, the prosecutor had no property in the document as a security, nor even in the paper on which the acceptance was written. Lord Campbell CJ: ‘… we apprehend that to support the indictment the document must have been a valuable security while in the hands of the prosecutor. While it was in the hands of the prosecutor it was of no value to him nor to any one else, unless to the prisoner. In obtaining it the prisoner was guilty of a gross fraud, but we think not of a fraud contemplated by this Act of Parliament (7 and 8 Geo. 4, c. 29, s. 53).’
Judges:
Lord Campbell CJ
Citations:
(1857) 7 Cox CC 303
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Regina v Preddy; Regina v Slade; Regina v Dhillon (Conjoined Appeals) HL 10-Jul-1996
The appellants were said to have made false mortgage applications. They appealed convictions for dishonestly obtaining property by deception.
Held: A chose in action created by an electronic bank transfer was not property which was capable of . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Crime
Updated: 23 November 2022; Ref: scu.248438