Rlp helppp!!!!! Urgent!!

[connorpista]

Hi there any help on this matter would be great as i dont know what to do ,
a friend of mine stupidly shoplifted some alcohol from waitrose a few months back,
he was out of his face from the preceding night and obviously wasnt thinking clearly and was most probably caught on CCTV.
he was caught by the security outside the shop and the item was returned,
no police were contacted and yet RLP have been hassling him for the past 3 months trying to get a settlement.
they had been sending letters to his previous address and now have caught up with his new one and have started to send letters there
i have seen the other threads regarding this kind of situation i just wanted to know if he could be prosecuted in court because of the likelihood of him being caught on CCTV.
any help on this matter would be greatly appreciated as hes losing his cool due to the huge stress it is causing him and is considering just paying them to stop them hassling and i am trying to get him not to as i believe they are disputing a charge that they will not be able to follow up in court.
is there any case that could be raised about harassment from RLP or an excessive force claim against the security guards as a form of defence?
Also bearing in mind this is the first letter that he has received at his new address so the others were not "physically received" as they were sent to the former.
anyone who can help on this it would be greatly appreciated and i thank you for your time
Connor

[enquirer]

Re: Rlp helppp!!!!! Urgent!!

No police, No case worth a damn.

[CleverClogs]

Re: Rlp helppp!!!!! Urgent!!

No police, No case worth a damn.

Or even worth a shit?

See the attached file for how to defend RLP's fatuous and fanciful claim, should Waitrose ever try to sue.

[connorpista]

Re: Rlp helppp!!!!! Urgent!!

so do you believe that he should just ignore the letters? or send some kind of reply?

[CleverClogs]

Re: Rlp helppp!!!!! Urgent!!

Print out and send RLP a copy of the judgement in the Oxford case, to ensure that they have not forgotten how they were trounced and how, if they tried it again, they'd be trounced in every case that is adequately defended.

Direct your friend to The Bar Pro Bono Unit (link) and the National Pro Bono Centre (link) as RLP are essentially bullies - and the only person a bully respects is someone capable of fighting back. The firm of solicitors in the Oxford case, Bates Wells and Braithwaite, has its own pro bono page (link) and recounts the case here ---> link

[CleverClogs]

Re: Rlp helppp!!!!! Urgent!!

Also see http://legalbeagles.info/rlp-and-the...-and-the-lies/

and http://legalbeagles.info/wp-content/...urt-system.pdf

and http://www.theyworkforyou.com/whall/...1-03-22b.250.1

[CleverClogs]

Re: Rlp helppp!!!!! Urgent!!

In fairness to RLP, I will post what I believe to have been their erroneous description of the Oxford case and will state why I believe that they do not appear to have adequately comprehended what happened.

From http://www.lossprevention.co.uk/court%20cases.aspx

Brief case details

Two Defendants, together with another unidentified female entered a store and stole several items. They caused disturbance upon apprehension outside the store, requiring the assistance of 2 additional security staff from the shopping centre. The third female escaped and was not identified. The two apprehended females were abusive to the security staff. Due to their un-cooperation they were arrested by the Police and were found to have stolen goods from a number of other stores in their possession. They received a Police Caution and Reprimand respectively, upon admission of theft.

Please note the obvious, wholly unnecessary and quite irrelevant attempts to besmirch the characters of the defendants.

The CAB got involved and arranged pro bono defences for the two Defendants. They denied acting jointly for reasons not made known, which was called into question by the Judge. An application for anonymity was made by both Defendants and the Claimant agreed, on the basis that it applied to all parties.

No matter how many times I might read the Approved Judgement in the Oxford case, I can see nothing to indicate that HHJ Harris raised the matter of whether the defendants were "acting jointly" and it is not immediately obvious what possible relevance that might have had upon the course of the trial. One might suspect that it was another attempt to depict the defendants as being part of a gang...

Regrettably the case was not presented well. The Claimant’s witnesses (who are security guards and not experienced in legal proceedings) became confused under the considerable pressure of cross examination by the shoplifters’ counsel. This can happen in any litigation.

Pure flim-flam, meant to disguise the fact that the alleged financial losses had been most egregiously exaggerated.

The witnesses were asked their rates of pay and whether they had received any bonus for having apprehended two of the thieves - they were not. They were asked how long they had taken to deal with the matter and HHJ Harris decided it was 75 minutes at the most. They were asked about the nature of their employment and the Judge decided that they were security staff who had done what security staff are paid to do.

They were not "confused".

The Judge found against the Claimant, as he could not establish that the security staff were diverted from their duties. Whilst the Judge recognised that there were four different activities undertaken by the security personnel, being patrolling the shop floor deterring crime, monitoring the CCTV detecting crime, apprehending and detaining those who commit crime, and dealing with the aftermath, he did not however make the distinction between the former two, for which the security staff are engaged, and the latter two, which is their diversion from the former two activities. The claim was accordingly dismissed. Application for appeal was refused.

This is more flim-flam and does rather suggest how poorly RLP understands the salient principle in re Aerospace Publishing (link). No identifiable loss had been sustained in the Oxford case as no sales staff had been diverted from their ordinary duties.

Furthermore, RLP did not (and still does not) seem to understand that, if one wishes to claim damages ir would be helpful if they could prove that some loss had occurred due to some disruption in the profit generating activities of the store.

The Judge did however express sympathy for the retailer in question in having to deal with situations such as that which the Defendants caused. He found that other losses were recoverable, markedly, commenting that had the shop floor staff dealt with the incident, this may well cause significant disruption to the business.

That statement nearly conforms with the Judgement, although the Judge also stated that, where the claimant has a number of cashiers, it would be difficult to establish that any loss had occurred.

If this were a binding decision of any kind, it would create a strange anomaly whereby a business which expects its shop floor staff to put themselves in danger dealing with situations such as this one, the cost of such diversion is recoverable, but where a retailer takes the extra step, at huge additional costs, thus protecting the shop floor staff and honest shoppers, the cost is not recoverable.

This is not flim-flam.

It's just crap.

The Judge further held that goods not recovered could of course be sought, although the goods not recovered from the third woman who escaped, were not referred to in the Judgment. (sic)

Neither was any reference made in the Judgement to the bank notes stolen in The Great Train Robbery.

Isn't that odd? (NOT)

The Judge finally made some suggestions for retailers to recover their losses such as a contractual car parking type of arrangement, which would not be feasible, or some kind of additional payment where security make an apprehension, which again, those in the business of retail crime are fully aware, is not feasible.

Irrelevant but posted so that RLP cannot accuse me of picking and choosing as they seem to have done.

Next Action

The retailer will decide whether it wishes to apply higher for leave to appeal. Given the insignificance of the case, an appeal is unlikely.

The retailer did not try to appeal, but one might suspect not because the case was "insignificant" - the claimants' costs have been reckoned to be some £20,000 - but because the same verdict in the High Court (or Appeal Court) would have scuppered RLP utterly.