Wrongfully cautioned for Theft?
To cut a long story short, my friend and I were arrested in September 2006. We had found a computer chair outside a shop that was shut up (the owner had closed the shutter using a key-operated device situated right next to the chair), which was in poor condition (the wheels were broken and did not turn correctly).
Later that evening, we checked again in torrential rain at around 11pm when driving past and it was still there. Being in even poorer condition, due to the rain, and given the circumstances, we presumed that owner must have been disposing of it and so we took it.
A couple of months later, in the September, the police visited my friend's parents' home, claiming they needed to speak to him about his car. They obtained his mobile telephone number and called asking if they could come speak to him. They then visited him at MY home, and attended with a search warrant with regard to the chair that we had taken a few months ago.
All throughout, we complied with them, gave up the chair immediately, were handcuffed, taken to the station and interviewed. All throughout we insisted that we thought that the chair was rubbish and that we had not known it was an offence to take someone else's rubbish.
At the end of the interviewing, the police officer made out that the superintendent was being so "kind" as to let us off with a caution and that we just had to sign and we could go home. Having been in the station for some hours by that point, we did it just so we could get out.
Since then, my friend has applied for an SIA licence and was rejected due to the caution that is on his record. I have therefore been looking into the Theft Act and it quickly became apparent to me that we should not have been charged with such, as our situation (which would be apparent from the case notes) does not fulfil the criteria of dishonesty (Articles 1 and 2 of the Theft Act).
My personal record does not affect me as such, because I already own my own business and so I am therefore looking for information on how I would go about appealing this for my friend (and perhaps for me just on the principle), as it is unfair that his career prospects are being affected due to a criminal record for a crime which, under the "spirit of the law", he did not commit...
Many thanks in advance for any advice. It is much appreciated!!
Wrongfully cautioned for theft
For the police to administer a caution there has to be an admission on the part of the suspect, and the mechanism will entail the caution being acknowledged in writing, and probably signed for as well. This fact alone will make it very difficult indeed to have the caution annulled. Although you don`t say, I presume that you did not have any legal advice whilst at the police station, which is, in fact, available free of charge. Had you availed yourself of this service it might be that you would have been advised not to accept the caution, which would have meant that to take the case any further you would have had to be charged, and then argued your case in Court. Certainly on your account, you might not have been guilty of the offence, as you both appear to have had no dishonest intent.
I qualified in 1979 and by 1980 was specialising in criminal work and other areas of litigation I became a partner of Sarginsons in 1983. The firm converted to an LDP in April 2009 and is now Sarginson Law LLP.