Andy Dingley wrote:
On 11 Oct, 22:46, Harry Bloomfield
wrote:

Until you have paid for the item, it is not your property, so it could be theft.

However it would also be difficult to prove theft, against a halfway
competent brief in a magistrate's court. "Theft" has a very specific
meaning (look it up, it's really very narrow), and doesn't cover this.
Of course if the defendant was before a jury, they'd be unlikely to
have sympathy for a legal nicety like that.

If anything, there would be a stronger case for criminal damage to the
chicken leg.

This subject came up in uk.legal.moderated a few weeks ago and it was
decided that it would be theft, because the original item was not there
any more, it could be proved to the court that by eating the product,
you could not prove that you intended to put it back.

Dave