R v Ghosh

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Criminal law in English law

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R v Ghosh [1982] Q.B. 1053 is an English criminal law case, dealing with dishonesty, deception and theft. It is relevant in prosecutions under, for example, the Theft Act 1968^[1], the Fraud Act^[2], the Social Security Administration Act and the Immigration and Asylum Act.

1 The Case
2 The Appeal
3 The 'Ghosh Test'
4 Related Pages
5 References

[edit] The Case

Ghosh was a surgeon, who was convicted of four theft act offences^[1] (one under s. 20(2) and the rest under s. 15(1)). During his work as a locum surgeon he obtained money by claiming fees for work that others had carried out, or that had been carried out under the NHS.

[edit] The Appeal

His appeal was on the basis that the trial judge had told the jury to use their common sense to determine whether the accused's conduct had been dishonest or not.

Ghosh argued that the judge should have instructed the jury that dishonesty was about the accused’s state of mind (a subjective test) rather than the jury’s point of view (an objective test). In dismissing the appeal (although they changed the guidance on directing a jury, they felt that the original direction did not lead to an unsafe or unsound conviction), the judgement of the court stated “…a jury must first of all decide whether according to the ordinary standards of reasonable and honest people what was done was dishonest. … If it was dishonest … then the jury must consider whether the defendant himself must have realised that what he was doing was by those standards dishonest.”

[edit] The 'Ghosh Test'

In other words, the court ruled that the test for dishonesty must be both subjective and objective. As a result, we have ‘the Ghosh test', which jury must consider before reaching a verdict on dishonesty :

Was the act one that an ordinary decent person (normally considered to be the ubiquitous ‘man on the top deck of a Clapham omnibus’) would consider to be dishonest (the objective test)? If so :
Must the accused have realised that what he was doing was, by those standards, dishonest (the subjective test)?

Note that it is not essential for a person to admit that they acted in a way that they knew to be dishonest, it is probably enough that they knew others would think their behaviour was dishonest, or that they thought that what they were doing was ‘wrong’.^[3]