Fraud and theft have the obvious common element of dishonesty. Whilst the Supreme Court last year in Ivey v Genting[1] ruled that the test for dishonesty in criminal cases should be an objective one, proof of dishonesty alone, whether for theft or fraud, is not enough to secure a criminal conviction. As well as establishing dishonesty, the prosecution needs a clear understanding of the conduct constituting the actus reus of the offence to avoid the kind of upset experienced in R v Darroux[2].
