Our criminal lawyers are experts at raising the defence of claim of right. Claim of right is a complete defence to stealing (larceny). It also includes any offence that involves stealing as an element, for example robbery.Â
What is a claim of right?
You will have a claim of right where you possess a genuine belief that you have a bona fide claim of right to certain money or property. If you believed you were entitled to take the money or property, it does not matter that you did not believe you were entitled to take it in the manner you did.
What is the legal test for claim of right?
The legal principles relating to the defence of claim of right are:
- The claim of right must be one that involves a belief as to the right to the property or money in the hands of another.
- The claim must be genuinely and honestly held — whether it was well founded in fact or law or not.
- While the belief does not have to be reasonable a colourable pretence is insufficient.
- The belief must be one of a legal entitlement to the property and not simply a moral entitlement.
- The existence of such a claim when genuinely held, may constitute an answer to a crime in which the means used to take the property involved an assault or the use of arms. The relevant issue being whether the accused had a genuine belief in a legal right to the property rather than a belief in a legal right to employ the means in question to recover it.
- The claim of right is not confined to the specific property or banknotes which were once held by the claimant. This can also extend to cases where what is taken is their equivalent in value. That may be qualified when the property is taken ostensibly under a claim of right to hold them by way of safekeeping or as security for a loan, yet the actual intention was to sell them.
- The claim of right must extend to the entirety of the property or money taken. Such a claim does not provide any answer where the property or money taken intentionally goes beyond that to which the bona fide claim attaches.
- In the case of an Accused is charged as an accessory, what is relevant is the existence of a bona fide claim in the principal offender or offenders. There can be no accessorial liability unless there has in fact been a foundational knowing of the essential facts which made what was done a crime. And, unless the person who is charged as an accessory intentionally aided, abetted, counselled or procured those acts.
Reasonable doubtÂ
When you raise a claim of right the police must negative the claim of right beyond reasonable doubt.