Fraud – Possession of articles for use in fraud
A person is guilty of an offence if he has in his possession or under his control any article for use in the course of or in connection with any fraud.
There are two parts of this offence – and I am going to deal with the second part first.
articles for use in the course of or in connection with any fraud
Neither defendant has disputed that the items which the police found in **, our exhibits ** - ** - are items which someone would use in connection with fraud. No one has suggested that they had any legitimate purpose. So it may be that you do not need to consider this part of the offence in any detail.
he has in his possession or under his control
There are two aspects to this.
Firstly, possession or control. These are ordinary English words with no special legal meaning.
The prosecution do not have to prove that a defendant owned items, or that they belonged to him – simply that he had possession or control of them.
A defendant may have possession or control of something if it is in his ***.
The second aspect is “knowledge.” It is not possible for a defendant to have possession or control of something if he does not know that it is there. To be found guilty each defendant must have known that the *** were in **. Knowledge, or lack of knowledge, is perhaps the most important issue in this case.
D1 given evidence that he knew nothing about any of the items in the exhibits list.
D2, when arrested, told the police that the items in the *** were not his.
So, the key questions for you to answer separately in relation to each defendant, having regard to all the evidence and the directions which I give you, are these
(i) Did the defendant, either individually or jointly, have possession or control of any of the items **?
and
(ii) Did the defendant know that any of those items was in the **?
If you are sure that the answer to both questions is “yes”, he is guilty. If the answer to either question may be “no”, he is not guilty.
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