Wages Paid to a Stranger Account

matttye

m22kk56 wrote: »

Update on this.....police came to my house today and took statement and evidence. They are taking this seriously (which surprised me) and agree this person may have committed theft by retaining wrongful credit.

Watch this space...!!!

It's not a wrongful credit.

Section 24A(2A) of the Theft Act 1968 says a credit is 'wrongful' if it derived from:

-theft
-blackmail
-fraud
-handling stolen goods

Theft would be the more appropriate charge but there are two ways they could get around that.

1. To say they thought the money was theirs (thus spending it is not 'dishonest' - one of the ingredients of theft).
2. To say they spent it but intended to pay it back (no intention to permanently deprive - another ingredient of theft).

I think the police will struggle to do anything about this. It's likely to end up being a civil matter.

iAMaLONDONER

matttye wrote: »

It's not a wrongful credit.

Section 24A(2A) of the Theft Act 1968 says a credit is 'wrongful' if it derived from:

-theft
-blackmail
-fraud
-handling stolen goods

Theft would be the more appropriate charge but there are two ways they could get around that.

1. To say they thought the money was theirs (thus spending it is not 'dishonest' - one of the ingredients of theft).
2. To say they spent it but intended to pay it back (no intention to permanently deprive - another ingredient of theft).

I think the police will struggle to do anything about this. It's likely to end up being a civil matter.

I've heard of people been prosecuted for keeping large payments accidentally paid into their account.

matttye

iAMaLONDONER wrote: »

I've heard of people been prosecuted for keeping large payments accidentally paid into their account.

I'm not saying it's not possible as each case will be treated on its own merits.

Just saying that for it to be theft, the person would have to be dishonest in spending the money.

The test for dishonesty is a two part one, as decided in the case of R -v- Ghosh.

Lord Lane CJ:

"In determining whether the prosecution has proved that the defendant was acting dishonestly, a jury must first of all decide whether according to the ordinary standards of reasonable and honest people what was done was dishonest. If it was not dishonest by those standards, that is the end of the matter and the prosecution fails.

If it was dishonest by those standards, then the jury must consider whether the defendant himself must have realised that what he was doing was by those standards dishonest."

This makes it a joint objective/subjective test. So although it would be considered dishonest to spend money that randomly arrives in your account according to the ordinary standards of reasonable and honest people, if the recipient thought that it was their money, they would not have realised that what they did was dishonest, and it would therefore not be considered dishonest in law.

If it's not dishonest, it's not theft.

antrobus

iAMaLONDONER wrote: »

I've heard of people been prosecuted for keeping large payments accidentally paid into their account.

Sarah Jane Lee of Blackburn, pled guilt to a charge of retaining a wrongful credit and eleven charges of theft, after her account was mistakenly credited with £135k and she began spending the proceeds.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1561601/Bank-blunder-woman-in-135K-spending-spree.html

matttye wrote: »

I'm not saying it's not possible as each case will be treated on its own merits. ........

In this particular case, the recipient of the money has ignored two letters from Santander asking for the money back. It's a tough call, but I'm not sure that it's going to be that hard for the prosecution to persuade a jury that the recipient was 'dishonest'.:)

matttye

antrobus wrote: »

In this particular case, the recipient of the money has ignored two letters from Santander asking for the money back. It's a tough call, but I'm not sure that it's going to be that hard for the prosecution to persuade a jury that the recipient was 'dishonest'.:)

If the person wasn't dishonest at the time that they spent the money, but became dishonest after spending it by not offering to pay it back, it's again not theft.

The actus reus (guilty act; appropriation of property - in this case, spending the money) and mens rea (guilty mind; dishonesty, intention to permanently deprive) must coincide.

What you're saying could possibly only amount to theft if the person spent the money only after being written to by Santander. If, however, they knew the money wasn't theirs to begin with when they spent it then it would be theft with or without Santander's involvement.

It's not black and white.

All I'm saying is the recipient may not be guilty of any offence. A lot of it will depend upon what the recipient has to say for themselves when spoken to by the police.