About the project

Dishonesty is an essential part of several common criminal offences such as theft, burglary, robbery and fraud. A person who has not been dishonest cannot be convicted of these offences. Despite its importance in establishing criminal liability, the law does not provide a definition of dishonesty. The courts use a test called the Ghosh test (after the name of the case in which the test was formulated) for dishonesty which asks two questions:

1. Was the defendant's conduct dishonest according to the ordinary standards of reasonable and honest people?
2. Did the defendant realise that his conduct would be considered dishonest by the standards of reasonable and honest people?

The answer to both of these questions must be 'yes' in order for the defendant's dishonesty to be established. One of the problems with this test is that it assumes that there is a common standard of honesty amongst all reasonable and honest people and that they would all therefore be in agreement about whether or not the defendant's behaviour could be categorised as dishonest. This project is designed to explore whether there is a common standard of honesty in society by examining public perceptions of dishonesty in relation to a range of common situations. This will help us to understand how ordinary people reach decisions about whether something is honest or dishonest and this will then provide some insight into the operation of the Ghosh test.

More about the law...