This sense of "protecting the places"...

[Bikin Glynn]

In these scenarios it's totally legal...

The Theft Act says "A person’s appropriation of property belonging to another is not to be regarded as dishonest ... if he appropriates the property in the belief that he would have the other’s consent if the other knew of the appropriation and the circumstances of it"

that is interesting, slightly worrying though it could be applied to anything..... I recon you would consent to me taking your car lol

 

[Oxygen Thief]

I must comment since this is such an interesting post .

So I will make an example .

If frank lived with a cow in his lounge and dies. his only daughter lives in California and it takes her a few weeks to get back due to time of work blah blah blah .

Now Adam comes along doesn’t break in as a window is open climbs in sees all franks ww2 medals and “oinks” them for hisself or eBay .

Now we have cow house on 28dl

When tulip gets here from California & wants her dads medals as they grew up talking about them etc is this correct ??? Would love to no your views??

How is it we can tell the future that anything would go into a skip ? Who is psychic ? Let me no the lottery numbers .

You can bet that somewhere there is a legal argument that it was for the best outcome for the survival of the medals.

 

[Bikin Glynn]

You can bet that somewhere there is a legal argument that it was for the best outcome for the survival of the medals.

what about that poor cow though!

 

[Bikin Glynn]

Just a side note I have explored with a couple of guys who took stuff in the past (dont see either of them no but thats nothing to do with taking stuff) didnt really bother me I just let them get on with it but did feel a bit uncomfortable.
Certainly didn't see it as my place to try & stop them.

 

[Down and beyond]

You can bet that somewhere there is a legal argument that it was for the best outcome for the survival of the medals.

Agreed there could be endless scenarios all with different outcomes .

 

[Oxygen Thief]

@Bikin Glynn

There's a couple of interesting studies as well, summarised here. This is standard law school stuff...

R v Woodman [1974] QB 758
A sold all the scrap metal on certain disused business premises to B, who removed most of it but left some as being too inaccessible to be worth the expense of removal. The defendant then entered the premises to take some of this scrap and was held to have been rightly convicted of its theft. A continued to control the site and his conduct in erecting fences and posting notices showed that he intended to exclude others from it.

R v (Adrian) Small [1987] Crim LR 778
The defendant was charged with theft of a car. He claimed that he thought that it had been abandoned by the owner because it had been left for over a week with the keys in it. The Court of Appeal ruled that he could not be guilty of theft if he had an honest belief to that effect, as if the car had been abandoned, the owner would not be ‘deprived’ of it.

The last one there is interesting and needs more research. The whole 'depriving' thing.

 

[Ojay]

Someone stole a shark once

 

[Oxygen Thief]

Someone stole a shark once

...and a dragon

 

[Speed]

R v (Adrian) Small [1987] Crim LR 778
The defendant was charged with theft of a car. He claimed that he thought that it had been abandoned by the owner because it had been left for over a week with the keys in it. The Court of Appeal ruled that he could not be guilty of theft if he had an honest belief to that effect, as if the car had been abandoned, the owner would not be ‘deprived’ of it.

The last one there is interesting and needs more research. The whole 'depriving' thing.

Yeh i looked into that a bit when the Scottish police were trying to press charges on pete grange for stealing an old coke can. Basic outcome was you cannot 'steal' an item that is discarded. It was reasonable to assume an old empty coke can had been discarded as litter and therefore theft charges simply didn't apply. The hard bit is proving the intent of the original owner for more substantial items but im pretty sure you would have a case that perishable items left for years in an unsecured derelict building could be deemed to have been discarded, especially if that property has changed hands since the items were discarded and therefore dont even technically belong to the current occupant..

The law is FAR from black and white when you actually look at it. In fact its intentionally built to be open to interpretation in court.

 

[mookster]

But there is its called the criminal law! & you know Iv been doing this plenty long enough but still try & stay on the right side of this wherever possible.

I do think what you did is somewhat different though, if you have genuine intentions of reuniting items with family members thats a good thing.

I wasn't talking about the wider criminal law, more the 'laws' and codes and nonsense that likes to get quoted by noobs. In regards to urbex there are no set laws within the community as to what people can and can't do, so it's utterly useless trying to impose rules on a group of people doing something that is by it's very nature immoral. People will always do whatever they feel comfortable doing.

 

[SpiderMonkey]

"Bando"

 

[c2e]

Are you even doing it right if you have not stolen a cow?

 

[Oxygen Thief]

 

[Wastelandr]

I listened to @Speed's interview (excellent stuff btw very balanced and did the forum justice) and I agree with this 'you do what feels right' stance. I don't think the act of taking stuff or meddling to gain access is inherently wrong, but you have to ask yourself 'will it negatively impact the place if I do?'. If you can do it in a discreet way that doesn't, then no harm done. It also depends how much the place deserves protection (if it has a future or is it already doomed). People can get too fixated on rules to the point where they miss nuance and common sense (although not everyone has either).

The problem I've found is that I've known people who blatantly break their way in purely out of selfishness because they have an impatient attitude to exploring, or they would rather loot an object which adds to the place's future historical value because they think it looks cool but aren't that genuinely interested. You ultimately have to ask yourself, 'whats more important, the place or me?'. If you are sure you're saving a piece of the place's history or you know it won't be documented otherwise before demolition, then I'd say it's morally sound.

Then there's the main reason why I largely steer clear of both, purely because I like to be squeaky clean from a legal perspective in case I'm caught. Nobody is a saint just don't take the piss I think.

Corr thats longer than I thought.

 

[TheJungleBeast]

I some times take things, but it's situational, I don't explore homes often, feels strange to me routing through personal things, even if they are dead or moved on, just not my thing but if I do I'll 100% not take anything.
I enjoy underground stuff, military stuff and any old engineering like trains and such, in these places I never take anything that I would consider an artifact, but every mine/cave I do I always take some pretty rock back with me ( got a fucking house full of rocks and fossils )
On military sites or old egineering sites,if I happen upon an old bullet or interesting bit of iron/bolt/pin that is in some undergrowth or to the wayside, and it not bolted/fixed into place I don't feel bad taking it.