Tutorial 3: Property Offences

1. Sophie owns a small record shop called 'Exiled Records' that sells rare records. Kevin is one of her shop assistants, who works with Sophie on a pro-bono basis. Kevin is also a budding DJ, so he considers this an opportunity to sample rare records and to learn from the different DJs who visit the store. Sophie is already an established DJ. She allows Kevin to borrow records and play them at home, on the condition that Kevin will always ask for her permission first.

One day Sophie was not at work because she was DJ-ing in Dublin. Kevin opened the shop. Before closing he borrowed an extremely rare Prodigy record, containing previously unreleased tracks. He did not want to disturb Sophie when she was away, and in any case, he assumed she would have no problem with him taking the record. He also thought Sophie would not miss the record since she did not take it with her to Dublin.

Sophie returned from Dublin the next day. She was to DJ that night at an event in Liverpool. She went into her shop to pick some records, the Prodigy record being one of them. Being unable to find it, and unable to locate Kevin, she called the police. The record was worth 1,000. Sophie had to cancel her gig as the Prodigy record formed the key part of her set-list. Kevin apologised profusely the following day and returned what appeared to be the original record. In fact, Kevin had replaced the original with a copy (which he managed to buy online), as was discovered by Sophie when she attempted to sell the record two months later. Nevertheless, Sophie sold the record, having assured the customer of its authenticity, for a substantial profit.

Advise Sophie as to her liability, if any, for property offences.