Why is this called an “impossible attempt” at a crime?
The man, Deepak Singh, bought a rare Rolex GMT Saru with the intention of selling it for profit.
After getting the watch, he thought he may have been cheated with a fake and wanted to palm it off on an unsuspecting buyer.
While under the impression the Rolex was fake, he sold it to a watch retailer and attempted to flee the country.
The watch was eventually certified as authentic and original by the Rolex Service Centre after the crime was reported to the police.
Since the watch was genuine, Singh could not have cheated anyone about its authenticity – making it an “impossible attempt” at cheating that could not be completed.
The prosecutor referred to a past judgment by the Court of Appeal, noting that there are two situations where an offence of attempting to commit a crime may typically arise.
The first is where the accused has not completed what they intended to do – for example, because they were inept or someone intervened.
The second is where the accused has done all they intended to do, but the offence was not completed for some reason.
In the second situation, this may be because the accused was operating under a mistaken belief about something.
“This mistaken belief lies at the heart of the problem of impossible attempts because it leads to dissonance” between the act the offender intended to carry out, and the act they in fact carried out, said the court in the previous judgment.
