Foundations of Criminal Law - Assignment Example

?Foundations of Criminal Law Insert Foundations of Criminal Law Set A: Related Articles Fraud refers to the deceitful conduct modeled to manipulate another individual to issue something of value through telling lies, repeating something that is recognized or should be identified as false or suspected by the fraudulent party. It may also involve concealing a fact from the other party, which could have saved that party from being deceived. The following are examples of articles with fraud related cases. Therefore, this context examines whether the law was rightly implied and justice done or not. Jail for Sainsbury's IT boss who stole 17 million Nectar Points’ (Daily Mail On-Line, 15 January 2011) This case talks about James Stevenson who was an IT manager liable of stealing 17 million Necta points was found guilty and jailed for 20 years. According to the United Kingdom Federal Law addressing the concept of theft, it was very right to take that legal action because Mr. Stevenson served the IT Company with self-centeredness, where he never minded about the firm or the involved parties. The UK Federal Law clearly states that nobody should serve personal interest or engage in some form of corruption when working in a public office, company or private sectors. In this case, justice was acquired to the firm and the involved parties because Stevenson deserved the sentence. The court found him guilty of having stolen the IT Company’s money by serving his own interest. The legal issue here is that Stevenson had stolen millions of Necta Points that belonged to the Company and the fact that he was jailed served him right. The father of two, of Muswell Hill, north London, confessed employing some of the money to buy ?8, 120 – worth of products from the store. However, after calculations were carried out with all the evidences analysed keenly, Mr. Stevenson was found guilty and that was a fare judgment particularly when examined from the sentence point of view. The UK Fraud Law was keenly observed and justice done to the firm. The identification of this case by this article is accurate, clear and complete in the sense that it explains all concepts openly and clearly in a way that one can understand well. Policeman stole ?70,000 in banks fraud to fund affair with fellow officer... but walks free from court’ (Daily Mail On-Line 22 February 2012) This case involves a police officer who financed an extramarital affair using fraudulently raking in ?70, 000 in bank loans. After the judged heard his cases keenly, he branded him as emotionally fragile and the man just walked free from the court. PC Jamie Hillman who is 37 swindled more than 6 different high street banks, engrossing Northern Rock and Barclays, through application for loans and credit cards (McQueeeney, 2012). According to me, this judgment was wrong in the sense that what Hillman was doing is totally stealing from banks. This is because the legal issue outlined is theft because taking a person’s property or item without his or her knowledge is stealing. It does not matter who he served or how he used the money but the bottom line is that he was stealing. According to the United Kingdom Fraud law, any form of stealing from a business individual or organization demands that the individual involved be jailed because that is against the law. The fact that Hillman used false claims at the application of these loans including an open lie that he was a sergeant in the Metropolitan Police and even that he was a soldier serving in Afghanistan, makes him guilty and he deserved to be jailed (McQueeeney, 2012). Despite the fact that he might have used the money to finance ‘double life’, he used a certain portion of it to serve his own interest what makes it clear stealing intentions. Therefore, this judgment was not right because the banks from which he stole never received justice they deserved. The legal issue, which is theft, was not attended to. Moreover, the judge sent him to prison for 12 months; if indeed he was brave by funding double life, why did the judge have to jail him? That means he was guilty and deserved full punishment not partial one. Therefore, the article is right and addressed the concept accurately although it had a grammar error at some point where it wrote, “A policeman who funded an extramarital affair with by fraudulently raking in ?70,000 in bank loans” (McQueeeney, 2012). There was a mistake after the word affair. However, the rest is well and brought out the issue clearly starting from the title, which was attractive to the readers. School catchment area 'fraud' case dropped against mother’ (Daily Telegraph, 3 July 2009) A council, which was the initial one in attempt to put a mother on trial for using wrong address to administer her son into a popular state school, dropped its case. Mrinal Patel, a 41 year-old submitted an application for her five-year-old son Rhys at Pinner Park First School in Harrow, north London, in January 2009 (Editorial comment, 2009). She claimed she lived at Wallow Court, Fulbeck Way, Harrow, and had selected the school since it was near her home and she could walk. However, four months later after the position was offered to her in Pinner Park School, council staff of the school discovered the address she had employed was not consistent with their tax records. It was discovered that she was in fact, living in Streatfield Road, Harrow that was her present address. Nevertheless, Mrinal was clear in Harrow Magistrates Court that she was living at her mother’s place when she applied for school due to domestic issues with her husband who lived in Streatfield Road, Harrow (Editorial comment, 2009). Therefore, Mrs. Patel provided the address from where she was at that time and after the judges heard the case carefully, they dropped the case and set Rhys mother free. This judgment was free and fair because once a person splits or moves away from his or her spouse, nobody can tell how long the separation can last. Mrs. Patel never knew they would resolve the matter in a short span of time and therefore decided to issue her mother’s address to the school. The legal issue here is that Mrs. Patel had provided the right address and there was no need of charging her since she was not aware of how long she could stay at her mother’s place. There is nothing wrong with that and the truth is that she was not trying to cheat in order to attain a position in that school. Therefore, she deserved to be free, although she made a mistake of stating that she had stayed at her mother’s address for 14 years but the judge understood that all that happened due to the pressure that was mounting on her. SET 2: Sanity/Automatism related Articles The law associated to insanity and automatism has been contentious in its application and range (Schopp, 2001). There are numerous justifications for the existence of law on insanity. However, the main justification is that it cannot be right to a subject and unreasonable individual to similar standards applied on a reasonable individual (Cohen, 2006). Therefore, it is right to have a set of principles to govern the criminal conduct of such individuals in order to have a fair balance between punishment and rehabilitation. The following articles outline some of the cases involving sanity/automatism law. Student tried to murder his father minutes after being released from hospital complaining of panic attacks’ (Daily Mail On-Line, 16 June 2008). A university dropout student attempted to kill his father a few minutes after he was released from hospital bad tempered of fright attacks. Jack Archer, a 24 here man thrust a 7-inch kitchen knife into the back of Ian Archer after he was convinced Jack wanted to murder him. Mr. Archer’s wife Barbara and Jack’s sister Lucy both of which watched in terror witnessed this (Gill and Bates, 2008). Jack Archer stabbed his father intensively since the knife went down to the handle and was pulled out by his mother, Barbara who reported the same to the police. However, the case was somehow complex since Archer had been suffering continuous panic attacks ever since he was in University in 2004. However, in the court, both the prosecution and defense were asking for the jury to return a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity (Gill and Bates, 2008). That is exactly what the jury needed to do because indeed, Jack Archer was a problem of the mind and he stabbed his father unreasonably although he never felt sorry for it because he had his reasons, which were unconvincing (Gill and Bates, 2008). The legal issue here is insanity which had to be examined and handled well. According to the UK and International Law on insane, any unreasonable person who shows some signs of insanity should be treated under the standards of insanity, which states that any insane criminal should not be jailed but rehabilitated (Gill and Bates, 2008). Therefore, that was the right action for the jury. This article is clear and accurate since it addressed the case precisely. Stalker who bombarded model Sophie Anderton with 'alarming and distressing' texts avoids jail (Daily Mail On-Line, 26 March 2010) Paul Davis, 59, who is a former stockbroker was declared guilty for harassing Miss Sophie Anderton through sending her massages every time and calling her and telling her to marry him. According to the last statement issued by Davis, he intended to help Miss Anderton whom he had read from newspapers that she was very troubled (Kelly, 2010). However, in court, his defense team argued that he did that out of insanity since he had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. However, he had become too much since he was warned by even the police but still persisted with his messages (Kelly, 2010). Miss Anderton stated in court that she was even afraid of going to restaurants and Tubes because she never knew how Mr. Davis looked like. The final verdict by the jury led by judge Andrew Sweet concluded that Paul Davis was guilty of his actions because he had began to recover from bipolar disorder and therefore, he knew what he was doing (Kelly, 2010). The judgment was right since Davis was reasonable and could not be charged under the insanity or unreasonable standards. Sleepwalker cleared of murdering father’ (The Guardian, 19th March 2005) Jules Lowe who confessed beating his father to death was cleared of murder after claiming he was sleepwalking at the time of the attack. His father Edward Lowe, 83, was murdered in an extended attack at the family home in Walkden, Greater Manchester in October 2003 (Perrone, 2005). The prosecutor, Richard Marks QC, stated that the defense of Mr. Lowe concerning sleepwalking was far fetched in extreme. Nevertheless, the prosecutor did not rush to decisions, rather, he waited to hear the evidence from the experts who also approved that Mr. Lowe murdered his father while out of his minds and unaware of his own actions (Lawrence 2010). The Judge, Mr. Justice Richard Henriques, commanded under the Criminal Procedure Act that Mr. Lowe, 32, be detained under a hospital order (Perrone, 2005). That was so because the defendant was not guilty through insanity but that did not mean he was really insane in the normal sense, but he was subject to automatism because of his sleepwalking. The judgment in this case was conducted well in the sense that, despite the fact that the defendant was sleepwalking when he murdered his father, when he is awake he is normal and had to be liable of what he did through automatism (Schopp, 2001). The judgment was right because the defendant undertook the action after a heavy drinking session and had inadequate clean-up and went to bed (Perrone, 2005). Therefore, the article clearly outlined the case as it happened and it also included some pictures to attract the readers. The fact that it also had an attractive title made it incredible. In fact, all the articles worked on the accuracy of information published because they are clear and addressed the concepts well. There was only one mistake in one of the articles but that might be an editorial mistake, which was not much significant. Otherwise, they brought out the concept of criminal and UK Federal Law precisely. Bibliography Beran, Roy, 2002. Automatism: Comparison of Common Law and Civil Law Approaches – A Search for the Optimal, 10 Journal of Law and Medicine, 61. Charlotte Gill and Daniel Bates, 2008, ‘Student tried to murder his father minutes after being released from hospital complaining of panic attacks’ (Daily Mail On-Line, 16 June 2008) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1026888/Student-tried-murder-father-minutes-released-hospital-complaining-panic-attacks.html Editorial comment, 2009, ‘School catchment area 'fraud' case dropped against mother’ Daily Telegraph, 3 July 2009 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/5730062/School-catchment-area-fraud-case-dropped-against-mother.html Fred Cohen , 2006. Frauds, Spies, and Lies – and How to Defeat Them. ISBN 1-878109-36-7. ASP Press. Jane Perrone, 2005, ‘Sleepwalker cleared of murdering father’ (The Guardian, 19th March 2005) http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2005/mar/19/janeperrone?INTCMP=SRCH Kerry McQueeeney, 2012, ‘Policeman stole ?70,000 in banks fraud to fund affair with fellow officer... but walks free from court’ Daily Mail On-Line 22 February 2012 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2104132/Policeman-guilty-70-000-fraud-fund-affair-fellow-officer-walks-free-court.html Martin, Lawrence, 2010, Can sleepwalking be a murder defense? [3] Report (author unnamed), 2011, ‘Jail for Sainsbury's IT boss who stole 17 million Nectar Points’ Daily Mail On-Line, 15 January 2011 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1347420/Sainsburys-IT-boss-James-Stevenson-stole-17m-Nectar-points-jailed.html Schopp, Robert F., 2001, Automatism, insanity, and the psychology of criminal responsibility. A philosophical inquiry, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-40150-X Tom Kelly, 2010, ‘Stalker who bombarded model Sophie Anderton with 'alarming and distressing' texts avoids jail’ (Daily Mail On-Line, 26 March 2010) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1260583/Sophie-Anderton-stalker-Paul-Davis-escapes-jail.html Read More