Introduction

We have chosen the Dealing in Cultural Objects (Offences) Act 2003 to illustrate many of the standard features of statutes because it is very short and does not require any prior knowledge of any other statutes.

The offences created by the Act have obvious similarities with the of-fence of dishonestly handling stolen property, knowing or believing it to be stolen, under the Theft Act 1968, but the new offence also applies to property which cannot be proved to have been stolen, as well as to events which occur abroad. It is relatively rare for an Act to have extra-territorial effect (or, in other words, to apply to events outside the United Kingdom). On the more restrictive side, when you read the Act you will see that it applies only to a relatively small class of objects.