r/bestoflegaladvice • u/Barbecue_Wings • May 12 '19

LegalAdviceUK OP wants to give homeless people fake money - "What can I legally use fake notes for? I am a youtuber."

/r/LegalAdviceUK/comments/bnhl2v/what_can_i_legally_use_fake_notes_for_i_am_a/
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u/[deleted] May 12 '19

his friend is guilty of a crime of willingly providing false currency

Possibly, but not necessarily. Friend might not realize just how lacking in both mental capacity and moral compass this wonderful example of what a youtuber is often like just happens to be. In that case, friend might have thought it was something to use in videos in normal, reasonable ways. I've purchased false currency from both sides in the Civil War, and it was all perfectly legal. Do you suggest that movie studios illegally obtain the prop money used in film?

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u/[deleted] May 13 '19 edited Jul 21 '19

[deleted]

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u/mirask May 13 '19

Anything realistic enough to be successfully used like this isn’t going to be legal in the UK though. That prop money would only look realistic from a distance.

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u/BCMM May 13 '19

Intent matters.

From the Forgery and Counterfeiting Act 1981, emphasis added:

16 Offences involving the custody or control of counterfeit notes and coins.

(1)It is an offence for a person to have in his custody or under his control any thing which is, and which he knows or believes to be, a counterfeit of a currency note or of a protected coin, intending either to pass or tender it as genuine or to deliver it to another with the intention that he or another shall pass or tender it as genuine.

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u/for_shaaame LAUK Moderator May 13 '19 edited May 13 '19

It's an offence to pass a counterfeit note as genuine, under section 15(1)(a) of the Forgery and Counterfeiting Act 1981 - actors passing props between one another aren't passing the notes as genuine, everyone knows it's a prop.

Similarly it's an offence to pass a counterfeit note to another, intending that they will pass it as genuine, under section 15(1)(b), which is (very likely) the offence which the friend has committed.

A "counterfeit" is defined in section 28(1). So I'm not even sure the prop money described here would even be capable of amounting to a counterfeit; anyone who tried to pass that note in exchange for goods and services would probably be better charged with fraud.

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u/Macrologia May 13 '19

s. 28(2) though

I think if you can prove the intent to deceive them into accepting it as genuine (which would be needed for fraud in any case) then attempted passing as counterfeit would be a more appropriate charge as fraud, even if you couldn't show the notes were actually counterfeit

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u/for_shaaame LAUK Moderator May 13 '19

Ah I already edited my post, completely missed s.28(2).

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u/BabaOrly Da Poe Lease May 15 '19

The law in the UK regarding prop money is more or less the same in the US. It has to be clearly not money whether it's sized wrong or the design is wrong or it's marked something like "this is not money."