The taxi driver informed him that it was a long and expensive journey,[1] and proceeded to take £6 from the student's open wallet, ostensibly to cover the fare.

[1] (52.5p) The House of Lords upheld the earlier judgment of the Court of Appeal, holding that a conviction under section 1 of the Theft Act 1968 was correct.

Four elements are required for an offence to fall under section 1: A person is guilty of theft if he (1) dishonestly (2) appropriates (3) property (4) belonging to another with the (5) intention of permanently depriving the other of it; and 'thief' and 'steal' shall be construed accordingly.Viscount Dilhorne interpreted these words as not requiring a lack of consent of the owner, stating that he saw: "no ground for concluding that the omission of the words "without the consent of the owner" was inadvertent and not deliberate,"[2] and that Parliament in omitting the words had simply removed the necessity for prosecutions to establish an appropriation was without an owner's consent.

The appellant, if he believed that Mr. Occhi, knowing that £7 was far in excess of the legal fare, had nevertheless agreed to pay him that sum, could not be said to have acted dishonestly in taking it.

So proof that Mr. Occhi had consented to the appropriation of £6 from his wallet without agreeing to paying a sum in excess of the legal fare does not suffice to show that there was not dishonesty in this case.