Is it illegal to deface graffiti in England? From this site - http://www.environmentlaw.org.uk/rte.asp?id=49: In England and Wales, graffiti is considered an act of criminal damage under the Criminal Damage Act 1971 and offenders can be punished with an unlimited fine. Is it illegal to deface graffiti? For example, spray painting over existing graffiti on a public wall. By defacing I mean black-boxing, drawing a line through, painting over with the colour of the wall. So not tagging, but just spoiling or covering.
It depends... The statutory defence relevant to the OP may be found at s.5(2)(a) of the Criminal Damage Act 1971 https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1971/48/section/5?timeline=false if at the time of the act or acts alleged to constitute the offence he believed that the person or persons whom he believed to be entitled to consent to the destruction of or damage to the property in question had so consented, or would have so consented to it if he or they had known of the destruction or damage and its circumstances... So the burden of proof is on the over-painter to establish that they believed they had consent to commit further criminal damage (by over-painting black boxes etc).
The offences found in the Computer Misuse Act 1990 are criminal offences. The Limitations Act 1980 deals with civil offences and is thus not relevant. Apparently, there is no general statute of limitations for criminal offences in the UK (though for summary proceedings, the limit is in general 6 months).
In Spain, most traffic offenses are usually considered administrative sanctions and involve just a relatively small fine, and perhaps losing some points in your licence. In those cases, if the driver if the vehicle cannot be established (your example, or a far regular one of a parking violation in which the officer did not see who did park it and will not wait by the side of the parker until the driver appears), the fine just goes to the registered owner. When the fine is reported to the registered owner of the vehicle, he can report who was the actual driver who broke the law at the time of the offense. I do not know what would happen if the person named does not recognize his responsability, but my guess is that the owner has to pay the fine (HINT: do not lend your car to someone who cannot be trusted). If the infraction is so excessive that it becomes a matter of penal law then there must be a trial and then the accused must be established without reasonable doubt, so in that case such a stunt maybe could work.
The legal hook is reported to be §129 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which authorizes use of force to disperse an illegal assembly, which this sort of is. No statute that I can find states that police can smack lawbreakers who are forced to disperse, but as is common in common law countries, the laws of India are not fully explicit on that which is allowed or forbidden for police to do. As this article indicates, systematic limits on police use of force remain to be developed.
Prostitution is legal in the UK, but soliciting prostitution in a public place is still illegal, as are a host of other related crimes. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_the_United_Kingdom Frequently in any business, you need to follow specific laws designed to prevent some of the issues around that business that are undesirable in some way. For example, banks have anti-money-laundering laws even though banking is legal.
UK seat belt law is here. What you were doing is illegal and carries a fine of £500. As to your specific questions: How illegal is this? It is not a criminal offence in any way. What is the possibility of me getting caught? If a police officer notices you will almost certainly be booked. What is the possibility of being noticed? Depends where you are. If I'm caught what fines and / or penalties can I expect? £500 What's the absolute worst that could happen as a consequence of my actions? You could crash and your passengers could die, you would then go to jail for dangerous driving occasioning death. Having 2 people in a seat belt is extremely hazardous - it would be far safer (but still illegal) to have one person in the seat belt and the other one unrestrained. Could it be possible for me to get away with a warning? No Could I get my licence revoked? (:/) Seat belts offences do not carry a points penalty so, of itself, it would not lead to loss of your licence.
No, bare possession is not illegal under US law Nothing in Tile 17 of the US code (which is the copyright law) makes it illegal or even actionable to simply posses a single physical object (such as a game or a book) which constitutes a copyright infringement. Criminal copyright infringement is defined in 17 USC 506 and is limited to people who: Infringe for &quot;purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain&quot;; and Create infringing copies &quot;which have a total retail value of more than $1,000&quot; in a six-month period; or Infringe &quot;by the distribution of a work being prepared for commercial distribution, by making it available on a computer network accessible to members of the public, if such person knew or should have known that the work was intended for commercial distribution.&quot; However, in practice, the US Department of Justice only brings criminal copyright cases when infringement is carried on as a business, on a bulk or mass basis, and only when infringing copies are in fact distributed to the public. In practice the vast majority of copyright enforcement (both in the US and in other countries) is done by private suits by copyright owners or rights-holders. In the US such suits are generally to enforce the rights guaranteed in 17 USC 106. This protects six core rights (summarized): To make copies or phonorecords; To prepare derivative works; To distribute copies or phonorecords; To perform the copyrighted work publicly; To display the copyrighted work publicly; To perform the copyrighted work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission. The copyright owner can do any of these or authorize other to do them. Anyone doing any of these without such permission is an infringer unless one of the exceptions or limitations in sections 107 thru 122 applies. There are also the &quot;moral rights&quot; specified in section 106A. These apply only to works of visual art in the US, and grant the artist the right to: Claim authorship of the work; Prevent the use of the person's name on any work s/he did not create; Prevent the use of the author's name on any work that has been changed so as to possibly harm the author's reputation; Prevent any &quot;intentional distortion, mutilation, or other modification of that work which would be prejudicial to his or her honor or reputation&quot;; and Prevent any destruction of a work of recognized stature. Note that none of the six rights from sec 106 or the five moral rights from sec 106A covers possession of an infringing copy. One caution: so-called &quot;first-sale rights&quot; (from 17 USC 109) do not apply to an infringing copy, and it is infringement to knowingly sell, lend, rent or otherwise distribute an infringing copy. But the purchaser is not an infringer. Also, to play an infringing copy of a game might be a violation of the right to &quot;publicly perform&quot; the work, but not if done in private. However, in running a game it is likely that one or more temporary copies would be made. This is lawful if done from a lawful copy, but not if the person does not posses a lawfully-made copy. So playing an infringing copy of a game might well constitute an act of infringement, although a suit over a private act is unlikely.
What is the name of the crime and/or tort I have committed? You are guilty of the crime of fraud, the crime of theft of the money and the item (I can't point you to the precise statute). You have breached your contract of sale. You are probably liable for fraud civilly (i.e. you could be sued for fraud). But, if one was really creative, I imagine that one could find more grounds for civil and/or criminal liability, although they would probably be unnecessary since the victims have plenty of remedies to secure all possible relief already. Who gets to keep the object? Under the Uniform Commercial Code, Article 2, in the United States, the general rule is delivery of possession by the seller (which didn't really happen here to one distinct person), but for unique goods, title passes when the unique good is identified to a contract with a buyer, so first in time to contract, first in right to the car, would probably prevail. But, I don't know what the rule would be in England and Wales. Is it handled differently if the &quot;valuable physical object&quot; is real estate? Land is harder to defraud someone with, because a reasonable person knows that in England and Wales real estate title is (usually, but not always) represented by a certificate of ownership maintained by a public official in the Land Registry, and is easily checked (about 15% of land in England and Wales show in the link is not registered so the possibility for deception is somewhat greater in that context). Also, generally, you don't pay for real property until you simultaneously receive payment in good funds, while brief extensions of credit for a non-perfectly contemporaneous sale transaction are more common in cases involving tangible personal property.