Civil Recovery - Why not?

[Hurricane Puffrose]

Re: Civil Recovery - Why not?

Ok, can we please draw a line under the fact that i am referring to actual self-confessed theives here, as stated earlier - you know, the ones who start their thread with "I GOT CAUGHT SHOPLIFTING!".

Out of interest, did you read the first few replies, normally of You Idiot! what did you do that for??

The Legal Beagles DO NOT advocate shoplifting or any criminal activity, or any kind.. nor do we however advocate a company treating every person as a convicted criminal when in reality the majority of these "crimes" are not by hardened criminals, a lot of them are people using the sel services tills, when an item doesn't go through properly, or when Little Johnny puts a choccy bar in mums bag and she honestly doesn't know its there! Do you also agree that they should be prosecuted and hounded by a private company?

Personally I would much prefer to see a Officer of the Law deal with this, someone with the sense to realise a mistake, then some jumped up security gaurd who wants to be Dirty Harry and make a name for themselves!

A good example of this, and the Beagles will say that I have told this story before, is our local tescos.

An old man slipped his carer, and got confused, decided he was a shop assistant.

One customer paid for, and left behind, a bottle of £3 rose wine.. so the old man, who has altzhiemers, took a bottle of wine off the shelves and went to give the customer the bottle.

All hell broke loose, and the police were called, may I add to find out where he lived as he didn't know. I am now informed the care home he lives in have recieved a bill for over £300, for £3 bottle of wine that a mentally ill man took thinking he was helping. Thankfully Tescos have got involved and are helping, but if that is "Convicting criminals" to you.. then I beg to differ..

apologies for the rant guys.

[wales01man]

Re: Civil Recovery - Why not?

topman

i might be thick but there is a saying (innocent until proven GUILTY)
If you care to remember there are cases where people have been convicted with a cofession and later found innocent on appeal proven miscarriages of justice so an alleged thief who confesses still has his day in court
I wonder why you defend these companies so much?

[TopBoy]

Re: Civil Recovery - Why not?

Which is exactly why i have stated that the system may be flawed, but need changing rather than abolishing. These people walk into the store, passing the prominent signage at the entrance warning of CR action but choose to steal anyway out of arrogance, and the knowledge that the law is ill equipped to deal with them. my point is that just because the justice system does not have the time or resoursed to process all thieves, DOES NOT mean they are innocent, and does not mean they should get off scott free leaving the rest of us to foot the bill.

[miliitant]

Re: Civil Recovery - Why not?

Which is exactly why i have stated that the system may be flawed, but need changing rather than abolishing. These people walk into the store, passing the prominent signage at the entrance warning of CR action but choose to steal anyway out of arrogance, and the knowledge that the law is ill equipped to deal with them. my point is that just because the justice system does not have the time or resoursed to process all thieves, DOES NOT mean they are innocent, and does not mean they should get off scott free leaving the rest of us to foot the bill.

The name habeus corpus is taken from the opening words of the writ in medieval times.
It does not determine guilt or innocence, merely whether the person is legally imprisoned. It may also be writ against a private individual detaining another

everybody is innocent until proven guilty IN A COURT OF LAW

are you implying throwing away over 900 years of judicial history to satisfy your own personal opinion

RLP use nothing but gestapo tactics to justify their existance and are an Abomination to natural justice

[wales01man]

Re: Civil Recovery - Why not?

Thank you for the backing Militant maybe this guy wants another legal system for those he despises like the alleged shoplifters he hates so much

[miliitant]

Re: Civil Recovery - Why not?

It is more important that innocence be protected than it is that guilt be punished

Better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer

the above is derived from common law, statute law is derived from common law and adopted all over the world

[EXC]

Re: Civil Recovery - Why not?

my point is that just because the justice system does not have the time or resoursed to process all thieves, DOES NOT mean they are innocent, and does not mean they should get off scott free leaving the rest of us to foot the bill.

This is a wholly inadequate argument.

In a democratic society the answer to a poorly resourced justice system cannot possibly be for commercial companies to administer justice themselves for financial gain.

[miliitant]

Re: Civil Recovery - Why not?

common law by the time of Magna Carta, which says in Article 39: "No freeman shall be taken or imprisoned or disseised or exiled or in any way destroyed, nor will we go upon him nor will we send upon him except upon the lawful judgement of his peers or the law of the land."

[TopBoy]

Re: Civil Recovery - Why not?

WOW, another complete misunderstanding of my point. The last post was simply stating that someone who states "I STOLE" is a thief, by the meaning of the word in english language, regardless of conviction. An ex police officer has already claimed that retailers are "abusing" the legal system by processing small value offences. lets try this again.....................

I - AM - NOT - TALKING - ABOUT - INNOCENT - PEOPLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am talking about the people who freely admit that they are thieves. Why on gods earth can you not get your head around this point. Why does the word INNOCENT keep cropping up????????

Please, does anyone have a suggestion of how these incidents should be dealt with, or do we all really believe that people can steal - as long as it's not worth the courts time. How about if the security staff were to assault them as punishment - as long as they only hurt them "a little bit!". Not that this is what i believe should happen but crime is a crime regardless of how unimportant some consider it to be.

as for 900 years of law being thrown out, i do believe "THOU SHALT NOT STEAL" was around a little longer!

[miliitant]

Re: Civil Recovery - Why not?

"

THOU SHALT NOT STEAL"

that was written by men of faith, not god, ten commandments, or charlton heston

common/statute law was written by man

nothing is stronger than the law, it is what binds the fabric of society together

[Hurricane Puffrose]

Re: Civil Recovery - Why not?

Easy way of dealing with it.

Its so EASY!!

If they are known shoplifters, refuse them entry of the store to begin with, and if they do get in, remove them.
If someone is caught shoplifting, call the police and let the Law of the United Kingdom deal with it, not take a name and address and sue them through a civil court for 9 times the worth of the item involved.

As you say, its a CRIMINAL offence, so why take it to a civil court?

[TopBoy]

Re: Civil Recovery - Why not?

Because the courts cannot deal with the amount of petty crime that goes on - nor would we expect it to.

"nothing is stronger than the law, it is what binds the fabric of society together" - we are still talking of those with no respect for what you are saying!

one question - Does anyone here think that these people should be held accountable? does anyone have suggestions for how this can be achieved? rather than bouncing back and forth with these arguments maybe there is common ground somwhere. Surely we dont all think people should get away with theft? We cannot process these people through the courts as there are too many.

[miliitant]

Re: Civil Recovery - Why not?

the simple answer is

if somebody admits their guilt then their is allways a reason why that person has committed that crime

social deprivation, drugs, etc

it is up to a court to decide what punishment meets the crime, thats why reports are normally done before sentance

a court of law is not only their to punish, but to also help people to get the support and services they need to curtail offending

theft is theft but we elect the police and courts to deal with these matters

not a third party wanabe police force with no more powers than a public citizen

not unless you are advocating giving RLP a warrant card now

everybody is entitled, and have the legal right to access the law, guilty or innocent

[Hurricane Puffrose]

Re: Civil Recovery - Why not?

Yes i think they should be held accountable for what they have done if
A: it is proved without reasonable doubt by a court of criminal law that they had intentionally commited a crime
and B: The fine/sentence is set down by a judge of a CRIMINAL court, not an office in the milton keynes area handing out letters to all and sundry, REGARDLESS of wether the police had agreed charges be applicable.

[enaid]

Re: Civil Recovery - Why not?

Civil ,Recovery imho a good idea gone bad as so many other good ideas have purely because of greed.