Legal Advice - Legal Definitions

What is the difference between theft, robbery and burglary?
Theft is ‘the dishonest appropriation of property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving that person of it’.

Put simply this means taking someone else’s property intending it will not be returned. There needs to be an element of dishonesty present. If someone believes they have a right to take property or the owner would have consented, this could mean a theft has not been committed.

Robbery is where ‘a person steals and immediately before or at the time and in order to do so, uses force on any person or puts or seeks to put, any person in fear of being, then and there, subjected to force’.

Basically, robbery involves violence or the threat of violence and something being stolen. For example, someone is approached in the street, knocked to the ground and their wallet or handbag is stolen.

It is also robbery to be approached by someone, threatened with a knife or similar weapon and have your property taken.

Robbery can take many forms ranging from a street mugging as described above, to an armed robbery of a bank.

A burglary is where someone enters a building, or part of a building, as a trespasser with the intent to steal, inflict grievous bodily harm, rape, or commit criminal damage or…

Having entered any building, or part of a building as a trespasser, the person is guilty of an offence if they steal, attempt to steal, inflict grievous bodily harm, or attempts to commit grievous bodily harm.

It is not uncommon for people to say ‘My house has been robbed’ when they actually mean they have been burgled. Unless a degree of violence is used or threatened, it is NOT robbery.