ABSTRACT

As we have seen, following the decision of the House of Lords in R v Gomez (1992), the distinction between theft and deception has become rather blurred. It seems that virtually all cases of obtaining property by deception could now be prosecuted as theft, although the reverse is not true as there are many ways of appropriating property that do not involve a deception. The crucial difference between the two offences, which has been undermined, is that, in relation to the deception offences, the owner of the property voluntarily parts with it following a deception by the defendant.