{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.029779058597502402, 'fraction_numerical': 0.012968299711815562, 'mean_word_length': 4.438642297650131, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Stealing a Ride

The Theft Act 1968 was a major piece of legislation designed to rationalise the law of theft and related offences. An aspect which, from a practical standpoint, has produced one of its more valuable reforms is Section 12 of the Act. That section has proved a most useful provision in the law designed, as it is, to protect the owners of conveyances from the temporary deprivation of their vehicles. The Section has been seen as more flexible and having greater scope than its predecessor s. 217 of the Road Traffic Act 1960. It is clearly a Section much relied upon by those responsible for law enforcement. It is disturbing therefore to find, in R. v. Bow «(1977) 64 Crim. App. 54) that the Court of Appeal has narrowed the scope of the statutory provision. Briefly, the facts of the case were as follows. The appellant together with his father and brother, drove to a country estate armed with air rifles. A gamekeeper on the estate, suspecting that the three men were poachers, and having unsuccessfully attempted to obtain the men's names and addresses, parked his Land Rover in such a position as to block the only possible escape route for their car. A scuffle developed between the appellant's brother and the gamekeeper, during which the appellant climbed into the driver's seat of the Land Rover. He released the handbrake and, as a consequence, the vehicle rolled some two hundred yards downhill where the appellant then left it. The appellant, his father and brother then drove off in their own vehicle. The appellant was subsequently charged with, and convicted of, an offence under Section 12(1)of the Theft Act. It will be remembered that this Section provides (inter alia) that"... a person shall be guilty of an offence if without having the consent of the owner or other lawful authority, he takes a conveyance for his own or another's use ...". There is no doubt that the interpretation of Section 12(1) has proved problematical for the courts.' It will be helpful at this stage, therefore, to examine some of the essential features of the offence