CRW2603_ASSIGNMENT_1

CRW2603_ASSIGNMENT_1 ntroduction Jason can be charged with malicious damage to property. Definition Malicious damage to property consists in unlawfully and intentionally damaging property belonging to another person or damaging one’s own insured property with the intention of claiming the value of the property from the insurer. The property The property must be corporeal and may be either immovable or movable. You cannot commit the crime in respect of your own property, because it stands to reason that the owner of property is free to do with his property what he likes. For example, if I no longer like my playstation I commit no crime if I drive over it with my car. It is for this reason that it is required in the first part of the above definition of the crime that the property should belong to another, however, the courts have held that X also commits the crime if he destroy his own insured property in order to claim its value from the insurer of the property. Damage Damage is difficult to define in abstract terms. It includes the total or partial destruction of the property, for instance where an animal is killed or wounded (Laubscher 1913 CPD 123), or the loss of the property or substance (e.g. the draining of petrol from a container), and the causing of any injury whether permanent or temporary to property. There can be damage even where the original structure of the property is not changed, for example where a statue is painted (Bowden 1957 (3) SA 148 (T)). It will usually be assumed that there is damage if the property has been tampered with in such a way that it will cost the owner money or at least some