Larceny Act 1916

45 Restitution

(1) If any person guilty of any such felony or misdemeanour as is mentioned in this Act, in stealing, taking, obtaining, extorting, embezzling, converting, or disposing of, or in knowingly receiving, any property, is prosecuted to conviction by or on behalf of the owner of such property, the property shall be restored to the owner or his representative.

(2) In every case in this section referred to the court before whom such offender is convicted shall have power to award from time to time writs of restitution for the said property or to order the restitution thereof in a summary manner :

Provided that where goods as defined in the [56 & 57 Vict. c. 71.] Sale of Goods Act, 1893, have been obtained by fraud or other wrongful means not amounting to stealing, the property in such goods shall not re-vest in the person who was the owner of the goods or his personal representative, by reason only of the conviction of the offender :

And provided that nothing in this section shall apply to the case of—

(a) any valuable security which has been in good faith paid or discharged by some person or body corporate liable to the payment thereof, or, being a negotiable instrument, has been in good faith taken or received by transfer or delivery by some person or body corporate for a just and valuable consideration without any notice or without any reasonable cause to suspect that the same had been stolen ;

(b) Any offence against sections twenty, twenty-one, and twenty-two of this Act.

(3) On the restitution of any stolen property if it appears to the court by the evidence that the offender has sold the stolen property to any person, and that such person has had no knowledge that the same was stolen, and that any moneys have been taken from the offender on his apprehension, the court may, on the application of such purchaser, order that out of such moneys a sum not exceeding the amount of the proceeds of such sale be delivered to the said purchaser.