ABSTRACT
A money transfer requires a credit to one account and a debit to another. The offence under s 15A will be complete as soon as the money transfer is made. Assuming that the credit results from the debit, or vice versa, the money transfer will be made (and the offence will be completed) when the second of those two (the debit of one account and the credit of another) occurs. What, then, is the position where D by dishonest deception obtains a cheque, but never presents it, or where he does present it but, perhaps because by then he has been rumbled, it is not honoured? In the latter case, he will be guilty of attempting to commit the offence in s 15A. In the former, he will almost certainly not be, because he has not progressed beyond preparation to commit it. Nor will he be guilty of obtaining property (the cheque) by deception.110 In that case, it is difficult to see what charge could succeed against D, unless of course D has, by his deception,
obtained something else as well as the cheque. If, for example, that other property was a letter agreeing to him having a loan, or a letter allotting him a number of shares, that would be property which (unlike the cheque) D was likely to retain. He might be charged with obtaining that property, the piece of paper on which the letter is written, by deception contrary to s 15 – not, perhaps, a charge entirely reflecting the substance of what D has done.
