Vinall & Anor v R

For robbery under the Theft Act 1968, the prosecution must prove a completed theft at the time that force or the threat of force is used in order to steal. Dishonest appropriation and the actual or deemed intention permanently to deprive must coincide.

A later abandonment of property may evidence an intention, held at the time of taking, to treat it as the defendant’s own to dispose of regardless of the owner’s rights. It may also constitute a later appropriation for theft. That latter route cannot establish robbery if the requisite intention was formed only after the force or threat.

The appellants were convicted of robbery at Portsmouth Crown Court after one of them punched the complainant from his bicycle, threatened him, and the group then took and later abandoned the bicycle. The jury was discharged from returning a verdict on an alternative assault count against J.

They appealed with leave, challenging the sufficiency of the evidence and, principally, the judge’s directions on appropriation, intention permanently to deprive, and the connection between the violence and the theft. The central issue was whether the directions permitted conviction for robbery even if the intention required for theft was formed only when the bicycle was abandoned.

1. Appeals allowed; convictions quashed. The directions created a real possibility that the jury convicted of robbery although the requisite intention for theft was formed only when the bicycle was abandoned. The convictions were therefore unsafe.

2. For theft, dishonest appropriation and the intention permanently to deprive must coincide. In a robbery case, the completed theft must also coincide with force or a threat of force used immediately before or at the time of stealing and in order to do so. A later appropriation, although capable of constituting theft, cannot ordinarily satisfy that temporal requirement.

3. The taking of the bicycle was itself capable of amounting to an assumption of an owner’s rights. The later abandonment could be evidence from which the jury inferred that, when taking it, the appellants intended to treat it as their own to dispose of regardless of the owner’s rights. It was also possible, on a theft-only charge, to regard abandonment as a later appropriation.

4. The trial judge correctly identified abandonment as potentially relevant evidence. However, he wrongly directed the jury in a manner which treated abandonment itself as establishing both appropriation and the deemed intention permanently to deprive. He did not make clear that an intention formed only upon abandonment was fatal to robbery.

5. The court additionally held that section 6(1) is expressed generally. It is not confined to pre-Act common law exceptions or to a particular method of disposal. The question is whether the defendant intended to treat the property as their own to dispose of regardless of the owner’s rights. This guidance was not necessary to the disposition, which rested on the unsafe directions.

6. The court declined to substitute convictions for theft or taking a pedal cycle because those alternatives had not been left to the jury.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) Appeals against conviction allowed and the robbery convictions quashed.
• Portsmouth Crown Court On 14 July 2011, HHJ Hetherington convicted both appellants of robbery. The jury was discharged from reaching a verdict on the alternative assault count against J.