Civil Recovery - Why not?

[Tim Messanger]

I can't see the problem with civil recovery, oh that's right I'm not a thief or smash up other peoples property.

Most of us are paying for the shoplifters through increased costs in the shops. This is also putting some smaller retailers at risk with the consequence of not just the loss of jobs at the outlet but up the supply chain. I have witnessed numerous thefts and criminal damage but the police will in most first time cases just let them off with a slap on the wrist. If YOU lost your job because of theft would you think "Oh that's OK just one of those things!" 6 months down the line when the bank comes knocking with a repossession order for your home and you and your children are out on the street how will you think then?

It's the same with metal theft, the incident it self might be "small" but the repercussions can be very very large.

I know I'll get a slagging off but consumer rights don't include theft, trespass and criminal damage.

[Guest]

Re: Civil Recovery - Why not?

I can't see the problem with civil recovery, oh that's right I'm not a thief or smash up other peoples property.

Most of us are paying for the shoplifters through increased costs in the shops. This is also putting some smaller retailers at risk with the consequence of not just the loss of jobs at the outlet but up the supply chain. I have witnessed numerous thefts and criminal damage but the police will in most first time cases just let them off with a slap on the wrist. If YOU lost your job because of theft would you think "Oh that's OK just one of those things!" 6 months down the line when the bank comes knocking with a repossession order for your home and you and your children are out on the street how will you think then?

It's the same with metal theft, the incident it self might be "small" but the repercussions can be very very large.

I know I'll get a slagging off but consumer rights don't include theft, trespass and criminal damage.

HI

No not at all everyone is entitled to their opinion.

I think you are referring to criminal theft.
In the civilized world we have a system where people who commit a criminal act are taken to court and punished in accordance to the laws of the land.
This ensure many basic rights of the individual, not least of which is the right to proclaim their innocence and have any extenuating circumstances taken into account.

The other branch of the law is concerned with the recovery of losses(the civil court) this has nothing to do with crime and punishment it is about the recovery of any losses uncured by a misdeed.

Here is where we run into the problem, does the mother who mistakenly lets her two year old place a packet of polo mints in his nappy warrant the same penalty as the seasoned shoplifter who make a living out of ripping of the local Tesco's.

As far as the RLP companies are concerned it would seem they do, unfortunately for them the law of the land does not agree.

D

[leclerc]

Re: Civil Recovery - Why not?

Tim,
DavyB has kinda said what I was going to say so I do not think I need to repeat what he has said.

You have said at the end that you are slagging off consumer rights yet you have not slagged it off. You have highlighted a deficiency in knowledge. With regards to theft and criminal damage, the police can prosecute if the business is willing to press charges. They can bring a civil case for loss as well but that will be through the courts. If I lost my job solely because of theft then I would be up in arms but theft is one of a multitude of issues that can lead to a loss of jobs. For example, people spending less now because they themselves have a fear of losing their job due to the economic downturn could lead to a loss of jobs. A lack of goods in the supply chain could lead to a loss of jobs. Poor decision making by companies can lead to losses where they are unable to continue trading. The new big chain opening a store on the doorstep could lead to a downturn in income and subsequent loss of income. Arson could lead to the loss of a whole shop due to rioting. Shoplifting alone is not the sole reason for that. Shops will have a reasonable expectation of how much stock they will lose as a result of natural wastage(in the area of food shopping), shoplifting and even staff theft. That is something that any retailer will build into their economic model.

Can I ask you what you understand Consumer Rights to be? It is a wide spectrum and one that you may have had a benefit from. The right of the individual not be shafted by the big corporate machine indoctrinating into you that some Consumer Laws do not apply to them. It is effectively putting them on an equal footing.

Slagging on Consumer Rights? I doubt you are even close to doing that. I think you have one specific area in mind but I think you are confusing certain areas of the law and may not fully understand why this specific part of the forum exists.

[bluebottle]

Re: Civil Recovery - Why not?

Hello Tim and welcome to Legal Beagles.

Whilst you protest loudly about retail theft and what appears to be a thinly-veiled attempt to bang the drum in defence of civil recovery, I am afraid you don't appear to be completely aware of the realities involved.

I am a retired policeman and, before I joined the police force, I worked in the retail trade. You will, therefore, appreciate that I have seen both sides of the coin. 90% of retail theft is committed by organised gangs who either steal to order or steal to fund illegal drug-dealing and smuggling and other serious crimes. 9% is committed by retail workers, known as "pilferage". The remaining 1% is committed, largely, by alcoholics and drug addicts and a small number of people who are below the poverty line and are stealing, simply, to live, and youngsters doing it for a "dare".

The reason the police appear to give "shoplifters" a 'slap on the wrist' is because the retail trade has abused the criminal justice system in the past by clogging the court system with cases involving items of small value - in one case, as little as 65 pence - resulting in cases involving more serious crimes having to be abandoned due to statutory time-limits on the commencement of proceedings. It costs around £2,000 per case to prosecute a person for a criminal offence at a magistrates court, considerably more if the offence is committed for trial or can only be tried at a Crown Court. The cost of this is met by the taxpayer. The other issue is one of propriety on the part of retailers. A common ploy by retailers, particularly where an item had been recovered undamaged and in perfectly saleable condition, was to go into court and claim compensation for an alleged "lost sale" and then take the item back to the store, put it back on sale and get the same money twice. I believe this ploy went under the name of "Double Your Money" after a tv programme of the same name that was broadcast on what is now ITV1 during the 1960s.

The training retail security personnel undergo these days is not what I would consider to be of a satisfactory standard or quality. With the introduction of EPOS (Electronic Point of Sale) checkouts incorporating laser scanners, some of which are self-service, it has been found that the hardware and software, particularly the software, is vulnerable to failure and malfunction. Mis-scanning, where an item is scanned, but does not get recorded, despite the familiar "beep" to signal it has been recorded, is not uncommon. Another problem that arises is the failure of checkout staff to remove or deactivate security tags at the point of sale, which results in doorway sensors being activated. However, these sensors, in themselves, are vulnerable to malfunction and their reliability is open to question. Another issue that has arisen is the practice of some retailers to set arrest targets for their security personnel. This is a highly- questionable practice, as it encourages reckless and indiscriminate actions by retail security personnel.

Turning to purely legal matters, in order to prove Theft, the following points must be proven -

• that the alleged thief has acted dishonestly;
• that they have appropriated the property;
• that the alleged loser has proper right and title to the item(s) alleged to have been stolen and that it is in their control at the time of the alleged offence; and
• that the alleged thief intends to permanently deprive the alleged loser of the property.

If none or only some of these points are proven, there is no offence committed. It should also be noted that dishonestly is subject to a two-part test prescribed by the Court of Appeal in the case of R -v- Ghosh 1982. Very simply, it has to proven that by normal standards of honesty, any reasonable person would consider what an alleged thief had done was dishonest and that the alleged thief themselves realise that what they have done is dishonest.

Retail security personnel have engaged in "guilt by association" and regarding something not on a receipt to be stolen when it is very likely to have been mis-scanned by a EPOS checkout. Also, customers, having left the store and discovered an item has not been scanned and return to the store to point this out have been wrongfully alleged to have committed Theft. These are not isolated incidents. It also needs to be borne in mind that retail security personnel are not trained in the laws and rules of evidence as police officers are.

As far as Trespass is concerned, it, first, has to be established that a person does not have a right to be in a particular place at a particular time. It then has to be established whether that person knew, themselves, they had no right to be in that place at that time. Then and only then can that person be said to be trespassing. Trespass against property is a different matter. Here, it has to be shown that the person had no right to move, touch or interfere with the property in question and that they, themselves, know they have no right to move, touch or interfere with the property in question.

Criminal Damage can be either deliberate or reckless and involve damage that does and does not endanger life. Arson, damage by fire, is a separate offence in itself. In order to prove deliberate criminal damage, it has to be shown that the offender intended to cause the damage and did not have the consent of the owner of the property damaged to cause the damage. In the case of reckless criminal damage, it need not be proven that the offender intended to cause the damage, merely that they were reckless as whether the damage is caused or not. A perfect example of this is where someone blindly throws a brick over a high wall and the shattering of glass is heard very soon afterwards.

The problem with civil recovery, as practised in the UK, is that it does not take into account statutory defences and prescribed tests under relevant criminal statutes, criminal case law and criminal justice law. This results in people being wrongfully accused and pursued by civil recovery operators. The other problem that has been found is that genuine and innocent mistakes have been alleged to be instances of theft when, in fact, they are not. Accusing a person of Theft is a very serious allegation to make as it is an attack on that person's honesty and integrity.

In the case of A Retailer -v- Ms B and Ms K 2012, at Oxford Crown Court, before His Honour Judge Charles Harris QC, a senior Circuit Judge, earlier this year, it was found that the sums being claimed exceeded any actual or alleged loss. This became apparent when two retail security personnel, being cross-examined, under oath, admitted the amount of time was, in fact, very little and that the actual cost of their applicable salaries, when calculated on a pro rata basis, was significantly less than what was being claimed. The Law Commission has stated, publicly, that there is no legal basis for the fixed-sum claims that some civil recovery claims demand.

English Civil Litigation Law only permits a person who has suffered an alleged loss to claim only that which puts them back in the same position they were in, financially, before the alleged loss occurred. They are not allowed to be better-off as a result. This is the basic thrust of the ruling in the case of Dunlop Pneumatic Tyre Co. Ltd -v- New Garage and Motor Co. Ltd 1915, which has formed a cornerstone of English Civil Litigation Law for the last 97 years.

Finally, it should be borne in mind that retailers compound the cost of security measures into the prices charged for merchandise on sale in their stores.

[bluebottle]

Re: Civil Recovery - Why not?

HI

No not at all everyone is entitled to their opinion.

I think you are referring to criminal theft.
In the civilized world we have a system where people who commit a criminal act are taken to court and punished in accordance to the laws of the land.
This ensure many basic tights of the individual, not least of which is the right to proclaim their innocence and have any extenuating circumstances taken into account.

The other branch of the law is concerned with the recovery of losses(the civil court) this has nothing to do with crime and punishment it is about the recovery of any losses uncured by a misdeed.

Here is where we run into the problem, does the mother who mistakenly lets her two year old place a packet of polo mints in his nappy warrant the same penalty as the seasoned shoplifter who make a living out of ripping of the local Tesco's.

As far as the RLP companies are concerned it would seem they do, unfortunately for them the law of the land does not agree.

D

Totally agree with you, Davy.

[bluebottle]

Re: Civil Recovery - Why not?

Tim,
DavyB has kinda said what I was going to say so I do not think I need to repeat what he has said.

You have said at the end that you are slagging off consumer rights yet you have not slagged it off. You have highlighted a deficiency in knowledge. With regards to theft and criminal damage, the police can prosecute if the business is willing to press charges. They can bring a civil case for loss as well but that will be through the courts. If I lost my job solely because of theft then I would be up in arms but theft is one of a multitude of issues that can lead to a loss of jobs. For example, people spending less now because they themselves have a fear of losing their job due to the economic downturn could lead to a loss of jobs. A lack of goods in the supply chain could lead to a loss of jobs. Poor decision making by companies can lead to losses where they are unable to continue trading. The new big chain opening a store on the doorstep could lead to a downturn in income and subsequent loss of income. Arson could lead to the loss of a whole shop due to rioting. Shoplifting alone is not the sole reason for that. Shops will have a reasonable expectation of how much stock they will lose as a result of natural wastage(in the area of food shopping), shoplifting and even staff theft. That is something that any retailer will build into their economic model.

Can I ask you what you understand Consumer Rights to be? It is a wide spectrum and one that you may have had a benefit from. The right of the individual not be shafted by the big corporate machine indoctrinating into you that some Consumer Laws do not apply to them. It is effectively putting them on an equal footing.

Slagging on Consumer Rights? I doubt you are even close to doing that. I think you have one specific area in mind but I think you are confusing certain areas of the law and may not fully understand why this specific part of the forum exists.

I couldn't agree with you more, Leclerc.

[wales01man]

Re: Civil Recovery - Why not?

Does the OP work for RLP and is squeaky clean never put a foot wrong or made a mistake lets hear from them?

[bluebottle]

Re: Civil Recovery - Why not?

Does the OP work for RLP and is squeaky clean never put a foot wrong or made a mistake lets hear from them?

Well, if the OP does work for RLP, I genuinely hope my Post #4 has enlightened him to the legal and other issues involved and that he will go back to his paymasters and tell them about them. Perhaps, he might also like to tell his paymasters that I am going to be putting together a Code of Practice for Civil Recovery that will, hopefully, put a stop to the bullying and harassment that goes on and the unacceptable situation of retailers setting themselves up as judge, jury and executioner and indefensible and unacceptable practices going on in retail security.

[enaid]

Re: Civil Recovery - Why not?

Think we all know theft is once again on the up, much is costing millions to put right especially in the scrap metal trade.
Something has to be done to stop or deter the thieving, we all appreciate that, firms who milk the situation though by making a profit from the crimes are not to be encouraged or allowed to carry on.

[wales01man]

Re: Civil Recovery - Why not?

Well said BB its time all these bullyboy debt and recovery firms were regulated good luck with you campaign as regards bailiffs and debt colletors before any action is taking the law should be that they determine if the debtor can pay a legal statement should be made by the debtor as to their means seems stupid to keep adding huge fees onto a debt where the means to pay isnt there .
, someone with little assets and a disposable income of almost zero should never be forced to pay what they cant afford bullying and threatning should be illegal with easy redrees in a court for thos who suffer

[TopBoy]

Re: Civil Recovery - Why not?

Ok,
Firstly let's be frank with regards to the two year old and the packet of polos. Looking at yhe pists on here we are all telling real self confessed shoplifters how to not to pay the charge so the scenario does not count here. Retail crime is a big problem and retailers spend a lot trying to prevent it (was systems, cctv, security staff etc), the costs if which ate all pushed into you and me - the paying customers. I have worked as a kiss prevention manager for over 15 years and sorry to day this but bluebottle - your percentages ate way out of date, the credit crunch has taken its toll and everyday Joe bloggs accounts fit s fat higher proportion of the offenders now. Another point we seem to dwell on is the fact yhat this is not heard by a criminal court - well most if these offences are not out through a criminal court to minimise in the potential costs to both the retailer, and the police/courts (where a prosecution is sought by the retailer they ate often coerced into not prosecuting by the police. Police in my city will usually pnc an offender and tell the retailer "its his first offence - blah blah can we deaL with it informally" where is the deterrent? And why are we defending thieves who push uo the cost for every1?

[TopBoy]

Re: Civil Recovery - Why not?

Apologies for the typos - I'm using a touch-screen phone to post.

[Bill-K]

Re: Civil Recovery - Why not?

Apologies for the typos - I'm using a touch-screen phone to post.

APOLOGIES FOR THE TYPO'S ? !!!! Why on God's EARTH should we forgive you for that ? Your shortcomings are of no interest to us. Your conduct here - as evidenced by your abysmal spelling - is deplorable. We have NO interest in whatever puny excuses you may utter. You are nowt but a miserable piece of snivelling illiterate trash, and should be banned from these premises.

Now - Does that sound like a reasonable response to your pleading, TopBoy ?

Well, if we are being frank - that is the response that those whom you appear to defend give, when Mrs J Public asks for some consideration when her 2-year old lifts a packet of Polos. Big money, indeed, innit, ma man ?

Organised crime at its worst. If retail loss is such a BIGGGG problem, then let's see some statistics. Just HOW many packets of Polos are nicked by 2-year old kidz - AS OPPOSED to the number of high-value goods nicked by organised gangs ?

[Amethyst]

Re: Civil Recovery - Why not?

As a number of the low value items that appear to have been mistakenly removed from the store without payment are small items like packet of polos, eyeliners, mascaras etc. I've asked Tescos if they are looking into putting trays in their baskets and trolleys to hold such items, or at least bags to hold them. I went to Tescos the other day and as the make up aisle and kids stationery aisles are first in the store I picked up what I needed and had no where to put it where it wouldn't fall out of the holes in the trolley. After a bit trying to balance them on the kiddy seat, and trying to push trolley negotiate shopping list and hold them in my sweaty palms, I gave up and put them in my pocket, feeling like a right crim and half expecting RLP to chase after me lol, until I had some bigger items (loo roll and cereal) which I could use to make a nest for the small stuff to sit in. I can very well imagine, if I wasn't so aware of the issue, I could well have forgotten to get these bits out at checkout, particularly as they were only small thin items, right at the start of the shopping hell, and with three kids bugging hell out of me for the next hour about flipping crisps and chocolate cereal, quite easily walked out the shop oblivious until I reached in my pocket to get the car keys (assuming I didn't get stopped by security by the doors and taken to the office for a dressing down and being forced to sign a civil recovery sheet to get out of there) . I can imagine the same would be true of pushchair hoods, things vanish in the folds of those things quite regularly-any time I'd open mine after a few days there'd be a whole heap of coins, pens and crumbs flying out lol.. They should provide a solid tray/basket or at least bags (paper ones that don't scrunch up to nothing and defeat the object) to put these types of items in.

Be interesting actually to ask Boots if it has made a difference in their stores, although they have had solid trays for a long while now and I hardly ever need to use a basket in Boots as I usually am only picking up one or two items, not a whole months food and crap.

Just a thought from me as to getting the root cause sorted for at least part of the problem (although really if someone is stopped just outside the shop for this kind of mistake a ''sh * t sorry best go pay for it'' should suffice ! not ridiculous letters and bills from people like RLP)

[TUTTSI]

Re: Civil Recovery - Why not?

Until I had a accident in Sainsburys many years ago the year of the millenium where one of there baskets had a metal bit sticking out causing me damage to my leg - costing them a few grand in comepnsation , they got rid of all the metal baskets and now have plastic ones, which is far more sensible.

I agree with Ame, they should have some small trays for loose stuff as the amount of time I have got to the tills I have lost bits and pieces that have gone throug the metal trolly's.

Also kids in the trolleys tend to tend to pick stuff up as mum is going round stuff she did not know was there and maybe did not notice. I am sure this is not a type of offence which not deserves to receive the bad treatment that RLP give.

Do they catch the larger crims such Bluebottle described in his earlier post - I bet not they only look for the smaller person that they can frighten into paying large sums of money to pay their fees.