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Possession etc of explosive or other article with intent to destroy or damage property
Offence title:
Possession etc of explosive or other article with intent to destroy or damage property
Act:
200 Crimes Act (NSW)
Offence:
(1) A person who has possession, custody or control of an article with the intention that it should be used to destroy or damage property belonging to:
(a) another, or
(b) the first-mentioned person or the user, or both of them, and some other person,
commits an offence.
(2) A person who, during a public disorder, has possession, custody or control of an article with the intention that it should be used to destroy or damage property belonging to:
(a) another, or
(b) the first-mentioned person or the user, or both of them, and some other person,
commits an offence.
Penalty:
(1) Imprisonment 3 years.
Imprisonment 7 years, if the article is an explosive.
(2) Imprisonment 5 years.
Imprisonment 9 years, if the article is an explosive.
Summary/Indictable/mixed:
Mixed
Jurisdiction:
Local, District or Supreme Court.
How committed:
(1) Following a workplace termination, the terminated goes home and collects a baseball bat to damage the managers car.
(2) During a political protest outside a rival party’s office, a protester has a Molotov cocktail to throw at the offices of the opposition party.
Important note:
For property to be damaged, it must be tangible in nature.
Reference to property includes a reference to wild creatures that have been tamed or are ordinarily kept in captivity and includes any other wild creatures or their carcasses but only if they
(a) have been reduced into possession that has not been lost or abandoned, or
(b) are in the course of being reduced into possession.
An act done by a person under a reasonable belief that the person had a right to do the act does not constitute an element of any offence under this Part. Perhaps the simplest explanation of this is to consider joint marital property, where one party asserts, they have damaged their own property.
Damaging property includes removing, obliterating, defacing or altering the unique identifier of the property. The unique identifier is any numbers, letters or symbols that are marked on or attached to the property