ABSTRACT
The decision in Bow seems to contravene the spirit of the offence, that is, to tackle the inconvenience of having your conveyance ‘taken’, and this is not what appeared to happen in Bow. Presumably, if the vehicle really is causing an obstruction (in different circumstances from Bow), then a person would be authorised in removing it without running the risk of a conviction under s 12.25 Be that as it may, it seems that the Court of Appeal are prepared to give a narrow interpretation of the word ‘use’: that is, is ‘use as a conveyance’. So, in Dunn and Derby,26 there was no case to answer when the defendants pushed a motor bike a distance of some 40 yards to look at it under a light. There was not enough evidence to prove that they intended to use it as a conveyance rather than just to admire it. Obviously, it would have been different if they had been moving it to a place where they could more easily start it. Similarly, in Stokes,27 it was held that merely pushing a car round a corner as a practical joke in order to make the owner think his car had been stolen would not amount to an offence under s 12(1), because the car was not taken for D’s own use or another’s as a conveyance.
