Anderton v Ryan

Facts

Ryan bought a video recorder for far less than its value. She told the police that she believed it was stolen. There was no evidence that it was in fact stolen goods, and for the purposes of the case it was to be taken that it was not.

History

Ryan was charged with attempting to handle stolen goods. The justices dismissed the charge, and the prosecutor's appeal by way of case stated to the Divisional Court failed. The prosecutor appealed to the House of Lords.

Issue

Whether a person who does an act which, on the facts as they actually are, cannot constitute the full offence because the goods were not stolen, can nonetheless be guilty of an attempt under section 1 of the Criminal Attempts Act 1981 by reason of what she believed.

Held

The appeal was dismissed and Ryan was not guilty of an attempt to handle stolen goods. The act of buying goods which were not in fact stolen was objectively innocent, and a belief that they were stolen could not turn it into an attempt.

Ratio

• A person is not guilty of an attempt under section 1 of the Criminal Attempts Act 1981 where the act, as it was in fact done, was objectively innocent and the only thing that made it appear criminal was the defendant's mistaken belief about the facts.

The judgments

Key reasoning

• Section 1(3) of the 1981 Act required the defendant's intention to be judged on the facts as she believed them to be, but it did not remove the separate requirement in section 1(1) of an act that is a step towards the commission of the offence.
• Buying goods that were not in fact stolen was, on the true facts, an innocent act, so it could not be an act more than merely preparatory to the offence of handling, and to convict would punish the belief rather than the act.
• The common law had not treated objectively innocent acts as attempts, and the 1981 Act should not be read as changing that without clear words.

Obiter

• Lord Bridge contrasted the case with one such as putting a hand into an empty pocket intending to steal, where the act is not innocent and attempt would be established, and he suggested that the law should look to the nature of the act itself.

Where it fits in the module

The case is central to the debate on impossibility in the law of attempts. It shows the clash between an objective approach, which requires an act that threatens harm, and a subjective approach, which punishes dangerous intention. Its overruling in Shivpuri provides the basis for essays on whether the law should punish the guilty mind in impossible attempts, and whether the 1981 Act intended to abolish the common law impossibility rules.

Criticisms

• The distinction between an objectively innocent act and a guilty one is incoherent, since many acts that form part of criminal conduct are innocent when viewed apart from the defendant's intent.
• The decision protected the morally culpable defendant who intended to commit the offence and did all she could, on the arbitrary ground that the facts happened not to be as she believed them.
• The reasoning departed from the language of section 1(3) of the 1981 Act, which directs the court to treat the facts as the defendant believed them to be and thus appears to answer the impossibility question.