Читать книгу Criminal Law - Mark Thomas - Страница 59

‘Guilty thoughts’ alone cannot amount to a criminal offence. A person may often think about committing a criminal offence; indeed, a person could even intend to commit a criminal offence. However, without the presence of actus reus, no offence is committed. The actus reus may require the individual to undertake a rather simplistic act to satisfy the elements of the offence (eg for the offence of theft, an individual may be liable in circumstances where they simply touch another person’s property, so long as they did so with the dishonest intention to permanently deprive). However, there must be some sort of criminal conduct (see the ‘three Cs’ above). In summary, the law does not punish mere guilty thoughts; there must be a practical application of those guilty thoughts in order to be liable for an offence (R v Deller (1952) 36 Cr App R 184).