ABSTRACT
The offence of criminal damage was created by the Criminal Damage Act 1971, replacing the Malicious Damage Act of 1861. As an offence against property, some forms of criminal damage clearly share some of the features of the offence of theft, for example property belonging to another. There may indeed be situations where the prosecution may have a choice of bringing either theft or criminal damage charges. To destroy another’s property is undoubtedly an appropriation for the purposes of theft. The determining factor may be that criminal damage does not require proof of dishonesty. For a period of almost 20 years from 1983, a key feature of criminal damage was the fact that Caldwell recklessness applied to both the ‘simple’ and ‘aggravated’ forms of the offence. As will have been seen from Chapter 3.3, Caldwell no longer governs recklessness in this area following the House of Lords’ decision in R v G [2003] 4 All ER 765.
