[Rowan]

Sorry to annoy you all agian but I need some more help:

What does the statment below actually mean, what has the person actually done.

"Contary to Section 1 (1) and 4 of the Criminal Damage Act 1971."

Also is there only one Section 1 offence or do you get diffrent sections for diffrent acts. What I mean is if you are Given a section 4 for swearing is there a section 4 for lets say criminal damage.

Sorry this is a bit confusing any help is appriciated.

[Teleologica]

Surrey PCSC 1, on Feb 23 2004, 06:50 PM, said:

Sorry to annoy you all agian but I need some more help:

What does the statment below actually mean, what has the person actually done.

"Contary to Section 1 (1) and 4 of the Criminal Damage Act 1971."

Also is there only one Section 1 offence or do you get diffrent sections for diffrent acts. What I mean is if you are Given a section 4 for swearing is there a section 4 for lets say criminal damage.

Sorry this is a bit confusing any help is appriciated.

s.1(1) is "bog standard Criminal Damage:

A person who:
without lawful excuse destroys or damages any property belonging to another intending to destroy or damage any such property, or being reckless as to whether any such property would be be destroyed or damaged shall be guilty of any offence.


Basically they have damaged something which isn't theirs to damage in such a way as it would cost money to repare or rectify it and they did it deliberately or it resulted from actions which could objectively (obvious to you, me and any reasonable person) be thought to result in such a consequence (see R-v- Caldwell 1981).

There is a section 1 in all Acts of Parliament just about I would think, but they refer to different things depending on which Act it is.

Section 4(1) Public Order Act 1986 (Fear or Provocation of violence or threatening behaviour) is totally different to section 4 of the Criminal Damage Act 1971-don't know what it is about off the top of my head.


Yes your post is very confusing
am I helping at all???

[Rowan]

Yeah section 4 of the Criminal Damage Act 1971 can anyone find out about this.

Thanks ndw78 for your help.

[Donkey]

Section 4 of the Criminal Damage Act 1971 lays down the maximum punishment for the offence defined under Section 1. So when someone's charged with an offence contrary to Sections 1(1) and (4) they are charged with the offence as defined under Section 1(1) (as outlined as eloquently as ever by ndw78) and also under Section 4 as it's Section 4 that gives the maximum punishments for Section 1 offences...

All Acts (laws dealing with specific areas) begin life as Bills which are heard before Parliament prior to being passed. The Criminal Damage Act 1971 may have started life as the Criminal Damage Bill 1970 for example before being passed in to law in 1971 and may not have even taken effect 'til 1972... Different Sections of different Acts can even been brought in to law at different times!

Each Act is divided into Sections. The first Section(s) normally define the offence with subsequent Sections explaining the definitions of the offence and setting the maximum punishments. Sections are spilt into Sub-sections (the number in brackets after the Section number) and these are, in turn, split into paragraphs (a letter in brackets after the subsection).

For example, in the Criminal Damage Act 1971, Section 1 defines the offence of criminal damage. Section 2 defines the offence of threats to destroy or damage property. Section 3 defines the offence of possessing items with the intent to destroy or damage property. Section 4 sets the maximum punishments for the offences in 1, 2 and 3. Section 5 defines the meaning of one of the terms used in Sections 1 and 2.

Does any of this help?