Editing Theft (section)

=====Belonging to another=====
Section 5 "belonging to another" requires a distinction to be made between ownership, possession and control:
* ownership is where a person is not legally accountable to anyone else for the use of the property:
* possession is where a person is only accountable to the owner for the use of the property; and
* control is where a person is only accountable to two people for the use of the property.

So if A buys a car for cash, A will be the owner. If A then lends the car to B Ltd (a [[company]]), B Ltd will have possession. C, an employee of B Ltd then uses the car and has control. If C uses the car in an unauthorised way, C will steal the car from A and B Ltd. This means that it is possible to steal one's own property.

In R v Turner,<ref>R v Turner (No 2) [1971] 1 WLR 901, [1971] 2 All ER 441, [1971] RTR 396, [[sub nom]] R v Turner, 115 SJ 405, sub nom R v Turner (Frank Richard) 55 Cr App R 336, [[Court of Appeal of England and Wales|CA]]</ref> the owner removed his car from the forecourt of a garage where it had been left for collection after repair. He intended to avoid paying the bill. There was an appropriation of the car because it had been physically removed but there were two issues to be decided:
* did the car "belong to another"? The garage had a [[lien]] i.e. a "proprietary right or interest" in the car as security for the unpaid bill and this gave the garage a better right than the owner to possess the car at the relevant time.
* what was the relevance of Turner's belief that he could not steal his own property? The defence of [[mistake of law]] only applies if the defendant honestly believes that he has a right in law to act in the given way. Generalised and non-specific beliefs about what the law might permit are not a defence.