Attempts and thwarted attempts

Indricotherium

Not looking for legal advice, just hypothetical discussion.

Does Haughton -v- Smith [1973] 3 ALL ER 1109 cover a situation, where Police learn of a crime someone intends to commit, and then lie in wait and arrest the person before they can commit the crime.

Say for example, the Police learn of an intended bank robbery and then intercept the potential criminals on the way to the bank and stop them, therefore making it impossible for them to commit the crime.

As it has been described to me it would seem to.

Farcear

If being arrested by the police were to be treated as an event making a crime impossible, per Haughton v Smith, it would effectively make the crime of "attempted ______" worthless. For example, attempted murder would thus require an accused to physically shoot (but miss) his target.

Taking your hypothetical situation. Maybe if, en route to the bank and before they were arrested by the police, the bank was destroyed in an earthquake then there may be an impossibility argument.

ResearchWill

Indricotherium wrote: »

Not looking for legal advice, just hypothetical discussion.

Does Haughton -v- Smith [1973] 3 ALL ER 1109 cover a situation, where Police learn of a crime someone intends to commit, and then lie in wait and arrest the person before they can commit the crime.

Say for example, the Police learn of an intended bank robbery and then intercept the potential criminals on the way to the bank and stop them, therefore making it impossible for them to commit the crime.

As it has been described to me it would seem to.

I think you misunderstand Haughton. From what I think happened, police stop van, discover its full of stolen goods, take van and two men to police station. Then some police officer comes up with idea, let van continue on road and then catch all the rest of the bad guys. All good so far, then bad guys arrested and charged with attempting to handling stolen goods.

The court held that as the goods where in the power of the police, then no longer stolen. So not enough to just believe that goods are stolen, but goods must actually be stolen.

theAwakening

ResearchWill wrote: »

So not enough to just believe that goods are stolen, but goods must actually be stolen.

just on that last point...

is it effectively determined by that case law that for a prosecution to succeed for handling stolen property, the owner must be identifiable & be in a position to give evidence?

or, would an admission alone by the accused that he believes the property to be stolen be sufficient for a successful prosecution,, without the owner's evidence?

keano007

I think conspiracy to commit a crime would cover this but I'm not 100% sure. Interesting one....