Talk:Criminal damage in English law

Criminal damage in English law was one of the Social sciences and society good articles, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
June 3, 2008	Good article nominee	Listed
March 27, 2025	Good article reassessment	Delisted

Current status: Delisted good article

Law Mid‑importance

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Crime and Criminal Biography Mid‑importance

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Archives

1

Merger of Criminal Damage Act 1971

I started this article (Criminal Damage in UK law) because for some reason I couldn't find the CDA 1971; so now the two exist in parallel, which is inefficient. Because of the duplication, and that this article is being nominated for Good Article status as soon as it is ready, it would make sense to have the whole corpus of UK law on property damage in one place. As before, comments are welcome; I propose that the CDA1971 article become a redirect here, with the more modern cases being merged when they amplify the topics dealt with here. --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 01:16, 3 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

nem. con., this has now been merged and nominated for GA. --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 23:21, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Explanation of recent edit

Just wanted to explain why I think it's best to link to the BAILII site in a reference rather than in the body of the article. If you have the name of the judgment in the body of the article, but not the full BAILII link, you have the option of wikilinking the judgment to the relevant wikipedia article, if it exists, or if you think it should exist. Otherwise, you're stuck with the external link. GDallimore (Talk) 10:05, 10 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That would seem to make sense, but I'm darned if I can find anything about style of case citation other than in general terms. I'm wondering what the Case citation template is actually for. This, along with a couple of other legal articles, is currently up for GA review and it would be good to get chapter and verse before someone actually reviews it. Meanwhile, this and another were recently quick-failed for GA because they lacked "Multiple independent sources". But if the only sources are (unique) law reports and (unique) statutes, online or otherwise, how can that requirement be satisfied? It is a lacuna in the GA requirement as far as I can tell. Perhaps a proposal on the Wikiproject Law page might be in order? Comments welcome. --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 15:15, 10 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree it's a lacuna in the GA requirements - it's more to do with Wikipedia's requirements for notability and reliability. A topic is only notable if there are multiple, non-trivial secondary-source discussions of it. It may be a sign that you're starting topics on the wrong bits of case law, or creating your own discussion on it rather than incorporating the thoughts of others, rather than a comment on the quality of the articles you're writing. Of course, I don't think that applies to this particular article where the topic is a general point of law and the secondary sources are the judgments themselves. GDallimore (Talk) 16:12, 10 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Cases to be considered for addition

Blake v DPP (1993) - vicar convicted of graffiti vandalism to s church on the basis that reasonable belief in "consent of the owner" did not extend to God, and any consent would have to be given by a natural person or a corporation.
R v Sangha (1988) - on charge of arson with intent to endanger life, it was held irrelevant that the fire set by the defendant was physically incapable (because of firewalls) of spreading to the premises of his intended (or reckless) victim
R v Smith (1974) - intent has to be to damage "property of another"; even though by physically attaching his stereo system to a landlord's wall had in law made it a "fixture", defendant's intent was to recover his own property. There's a land law case on a collection of stuffed animals about this. The CPE seems so many years ago now....

Look forward to seeing these cases being incorporated into the article at some stage. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 12:57, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Malicious Damage Act 1861

The article says that the Malicious Damage Act 1861 was the first real attempt to codify and extend protections in more general terms, and for the first time gave protection under the criminal law to personal property. This Act was a consolidation Act, and the most important personal property was cattle and it at least was well protected by the criminal law before this Act. James500 (talk) 21:30, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Bearing in mind this is a WP:GA (and was been approved as such by a PhD law student), obviously we can only cite what we can source. However, thank you for your input. I will redact when I have the spare time. --Rodhull andemu 22:01, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The offence that I was referring to in particular, as being against personal rather than real property, was section 16 of 7 & 8 Geo.4 c.30 (1827) (Malicious injuries to property): killing, maiming or wounding cattle as felony.[1]; and s.24 of that Act refers to any property real or personal, although it seems to have been confined to an order to pay compensation. This Act preceded the 1861 Act and it was also a consolidation Act. James500 (talk) 23:04, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well, all of those provisions seem to be penal, to the point of felony, so I don't have a problem with that; it would be a useful addition to the article as a nexus between the common law and the 1861 Act, and may be introduced as historical context. I'd thought that the Victorians were somewhat obsessed by listing examples to the point of confusion, but this statute seems to top that. If I live, and have spare time, I'll incorporate it into the article. --Rodhull andemu 23:18, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

On the page for criminal law consolidation Acts 1861 there is a link to a book on the 1861 Act, here [2] (in case you haven't seen it). It contains an annotated text of the Act.James500 (talk) 23:23, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That's interesting, up to the point where Davis claims that they aren't actually consolidation, and argues that there are still lacunae and that the criminal procedure remains disparate. In the context of this article, however, those opinions are more polemical than informative, perhaps, and don't add that much. We should aim to give our readers an overview from which further research may flow; but certainly not an authoritative, complete analysis. --Rodhull andemu 23:35, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Malicious Damage Act 1861 - scope of this article

It appears to me that this article is supossed to be about the law of England and Wales. Accordingly I think that a discussion of the application of the Malicious Damage Act 1861 to Sierra Leone, and to the Republic of Ireland, is outside of the scope of this article, and belongs in the article on that Act. So I am moving it to that article. James500 (talk) 13:10, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Cut and paste from recklessness (law)

I have cut the following material from the article above as it seems irrelevant to that subject. I will leave it here until I can check if it is included in this article.

In English law, the offence of "arson" was abolished in the [Criminal Damage Act 1971] (** is this correct?? s1(3) Act 1971 says "An offence committed under this section by destroying or damaging property by fire shall be charged as arson" and s4(1) Act 1971 'Punishment of offences' states that "A person guilty of arson under section 1 ... shall ... be liable to imprisonment for life" **), although the use of the word was retained to express the particular "horror" with which the public views offences involving the deliberate use of fire.

Question

Was I right to undo this edit? James500 (talk) 22:36, 14 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Query

The page states "Property that is abandoned has no owner, and cannot be stolen;[30] it follows that such property cannot be the subject of a charge of criminal damage." This may be overbroad in context of the Treasure Act 1996. If property is treasure within the meaning of that Act, then it does have an owner, being vested in the Crown, even if abandoned. There is also likely to be a widening of what constitutes treasure under the Act. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.174.153.174 (talk) 12:17, 8 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Jurisdictions outside the UK

Is the common law offence current anywhere English common law applies? If not, we can restrict the scope of the article and only bother discussing England and Wales (and rename the article accordingly). Hairy Dude (talk) 14:23, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Article quality

Since it has been awhile since the last assessment, I have had another look at the current version and noticed lots of uncited statements. Should this article go to WP:GAR? Z1720 (talk) 22:53, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

GA Reassessment

Criminal damage in English law

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review

Result: Delisted. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 13:40, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Lots of uncited statements. Z1720 (talk) 22:00, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.