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Myddelton

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Myddelton last won the day on April 25 2012

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  1. More from me on the excellent justicegap.com: http://thejusticegap.com/2012/05/very-evil-demonic-card-anag/
  2. A bit more on what went on during the Oxford CC trial hearings: http://thejusticegap.com/News/a-fatal-blow-to-the-reeling-civil-recovery-industry/ A big THANK YOU from me to BankFodder, Martin3030, ScarletPimpernel and the many other Caggers who have travelled this long and sometimes bumpy road. I love you guys! And, finally, a message to jonny46 (who was loitering on here yesterday!) and Frogboy, from one of my favourite songs, "Come on" by The Little Heroes: Maybe we could still find a way, To chip away at our mistakes (hey hey hey), Live a life that gives, Instead of one that takes, Make this world a better place.
  3. A few thoughts on anonymity. As is clear from some of the above posts, the retailer claimant in the Oxford County Court case has requested anonymity in the judgment, transcript, citation, reporting by the press and others, etc etc. For the record, I (and others) have no objection - repeat, no objection whatsoever - to A Retailer requesting and being granted such anonymity. In terms of taking this issue forward, it matters not a jot whether A Retailer is identified or not - the identify of the retailer is irrelevant, and all that matters is the judge's interpretation of the law. He may rule either way (though somehow I doubt A Retailer would be seeking anonymity if they were sure they were going to win), but the losing party will in any case have a right of appeal to the Court of Appeal, where any judgment will be legally binding. I am sure both parties want to see the law properly tested and clarified. That said, I am not alone in being somewhat surprised that A Retailer should want anonymity, for two reasons. Firstly, the British Retail Consortium has stated that its member retailers are wholly committed to "open and transparent" civil recovery practice. And it's simply not clear to me how anonymity for A Retailer is consistent with that public commitment. This CC claim was brought by A Retailer and RLP to justify their civil recovery practice. So, why not do so openly and transparently? Secondly - and far more importantly - we have been told repeatedly, by the British Retail Consortium, by retailer users of civil recovery, and by the civil recovery agents such as RLP, that one of the two main purposes of civil recovery is to deter shoplifting and retail crime. (The second main purpose is to recover the cost of such crime to the retailers, but as the practice would appear to recover less than 0.2% of the £4.4 billion annual cost of shoplifiting and other crime to the retail sector, it would appear to be somewhat ineffective in that regard). In itself, deterring shoplifting and other retail crime is a laudable objective, that I for one fully support. But it is not clear to me how anonymity in the Oxford CC case will assist A Retailer to deter crime. For a practice to be a deterrent, those who it is intended to deter need to know about it, surely? Frankly, I doubt many of those thinking of going out shoplifting will first take the time to read up on recent County Court judgments, or even to read this thread. But should they do so there is now no way they will be deterred from going shoplifting in A Retailer. Put another way, A Retailer and other major users of civil recovery should surely be shouting from the rooftops about it: "don't come and shoplift here, or you'll get a civil recovery demand and, if you don't pay that, we'll issue a County Court claim against you." Similarly, it is not at all clear to me (or others) why A Retailer would want to object to anonymity for the two young defendants, if it cannot have anonymity itself. Whether or not the girls are granted anonymity will make no difference to A Retailer's future ability to deter crime, or to recover the cost of crime though fair and proper legal action. (And for the record, no one at Citizens Advice has ever objected to retailers using legitimate and fair means to recover the cost of crime from proven offenders - our objection is simply to the unfairness of and lack of any clear legal basis for current civil recovery practice). But, finally, there is a more important point to be made (and it was made by the defendants' counsel in court): if the two young (and, at the time of the offence, foolish and misguided) defendants are not granted anonymity, then there is a very great risk that this will be used in future to deter anyone else thinking of defending a County Court claim issued in pursuit of an unpaid civil recovery. Did someone mention 'equality of arms'?
  4. Morpheus: "Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself." Yes, well, we did try to see it for ourselves, but The Retailer Who Cannot Be Named refused to disclose it to us. Their chief witness was happy to witter on about it in the witness box, as if its application to the sum demanded by RLP explained and justified everything, but he and his bosses didn't want us to actually see it.
  5. Last night, I followed Martin3030's example, and started watching The Matrix. I didn't get very far, as Mrs M wanted to go to sleep, but I got as far as this statement by Morpheus: "The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now, in this very [court] room. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth." Does Morpheus work for The Retailer Who Cannot Be Named? Or for TSS Security (who CAN be named)? Or for Retail Loss Prevention (who can also be named). Maybe Frogboy can tell us. Or maybe not. She doesn't seem to have any time for us right now.
  6. A lot of guests on this thread recently, including right now. But, strangely, none of them posting about how they have received a County Court claim from a retailer (or even A Retailer) in relation to an unpaid civil recovery demand. Is there no-one out there who's received a civil recovery demand recently and needs advice on what to do?
  7. She could be busy explaining herself to (a) Shakespeares (b) A Retailer © a lot of other retailers. Oh, and looking for a new job.
  8. Yep, you were right. Talking of Frogboy, where IS she?
  9. As noted above, the third element of the information provided by RLP to the Home Office, Ministry of Justice and Law Commission in April 2011 was a table setting out brief details of 12 cases “sent for issue” by RLP in early 2011. By ‘sent for issue’, RLP would appear to have meant ‘cases being prepared for the issuing of a County Court claim by the law firm Berryman (which subsequently merged to become part of Shakespeares), on behalf of the retailer in question’. The backstory is as follows: On 22 March 2011, during a short parliamentary debate on threatened civil recovery initiated by Simon Hughes MP, the justice minister, Jonathan Djanogly MP, stated: “The Government accept that a retailer arguably has a legal right to recover any additional costs or losses directly caused as a result of dealing with a case. However, we appreciate that there is no statutory or other clear basis for setting the amounts of such costs or losses that can be recovered in an individual case. Therefore, the amount of money, if any, that a retailer can recover from an individual accused of low-level theft in respect of its wider costs is entirely a matter for the courts based on the circumstances and facts of the case. I say ‘if any’ because my officials [in the Ministry of Justice] have not yet been able to identify any cases in which the issue has been tested before the courts and a definitive judgment given … a test case might be a good idea”. (The full record of the parliamentary debate is available at: www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/cmhansrd/cm110322/halltext/110322h0002.htm#11032273000005) Two weeks later, on 5 April 2011, Jackie Lambert, the owner/manager of RLP, was reported as saying: “We are pleased to advise that we have two of the CAB cases at present going through the court system, which should hopefully address the testing issue (albeit not set case law)”. On 8 April 2011, Ms Lambert confirmed to Citizens Advice (by email) that the two CAB cases she had in mind when making this statement were those of ‘Kate’ and ‘M’, both featured in our December 2010 report Uncivil recovery. Later in April, as noted above, RLP indicated to the BBC that it had passed information on County Court claims to the Home Office, Ministry of Justice and Law Commission, and the Ministry of Justice promptly shared that information with Citizens Advice. From the third element of this, the table with brief details of 12 cases ‘sent for issue’ by RLP in early 2011, we can see that: Six of the 12 cases related to employee theft, and six to shoplifting. The six employee theft-related claims were (to be) issued by six different retailers: Boots, Dunelm, Game, Primark, Sodexho, and Starbucks. The case involving Sodexho would appear to be Case 0005 of the ten court cases summarised on RLP’s website (http://www.lossprevention.co.uk/Court%20Cases.aspx) The six shoplifting-related claims were (to be) issued by Boots (four claims), Iceland (one), and Tesco (one). As I have noted in a previous post on this thread, the Iceland and Tesco cases would appear to be Cases 0001 and 0002 respectively in the ten court cases summarised on RLP’s website; the two claims were against the same individual (defendant), a persistent offender with at least one criminal conviction for shoplifting. In other words, not your average recipient of a shoplifting-related demand from RLP. Both claims appear to have resulted in a default judgment only. Among the four cases of a shoplifting-related claim (to be) issued by Boots was the case of ‘Kate’, featured in our December 2010 report Uncivil recovery (see p14). ‘Kate’ was an extremely vulnerable individual with a well-documented history of serious mental illness, living on disability and carer benefits. She had never denied the theft from Boots of one packet of Nicorette chewing gum, worth £13.49, but RLP had repeatedly demanded £165.48 (£137.50 + £27.98 for two packets of gum, i.e. a price of £13.99 each). In March 2011, the police force in question confirmed to Citizens Advice that the incident involved just one packet of gum, worth £13.49 [sic], and had been dealt with by means of community resolution (not a caution as repeatedly claimed by RLP). The police force even provided Citizens Advice with a copy of the community resolution form, signed by a member of Boots staff, confirming the details of the incident (and the £13.49 value of the gum). To this day, it remains unclear why Boots had never clarified the details of the incident to RLP, despite holding a copy of the community resolution form. In late May 2011, RLP suddenly indicated that Boots was now “willing to accept £90 in full and final settlement of this claim and any potential counterclaim or set off”. Not wishing Kate to be subjected to the stress of a County Court claim and trial, given her exceptional vulnerability and history of mental illness, Citizens Advice advised her to accept this offer (54% of the sum originally and repeatedly demanded by RLP). Katie decided to do so, and an anonymous donor paid the £90.
  10. But let’s get back to the here and now, and in particular what we know about County Court claims issued by retailer clients of RLP. In its written response to a short film on threatened civil recovery broadcast by BBC TV’s Watchdog on 14 April 2011, RLP stated: “It should be noted that [civil recovery] claims are routinely issued in Court and that RLP rely on established case law to support its [retailer] clients’ claims. This legal concept was tested in lower value first instance cases and the heads of damages were accepted in County Court by separate judges. Whilst first instance cases do not create a legally binding authority, they have some persuasive authority. The Law Commission, Home Office and Ministry of Justice have the information on these cases.” Noting that the British Retail Consortium and its retailer members have expressed their commitment to “open and transparent” civil recovery practice, we immediately asked the Home Office and Ministry of Justice to share this information with us. The Ministry of Justice promptly did so. The information consisted of: (a) transcripts of the judgment in the two Nottingham County Court cases HMV v Plummer (judgment dated 26 April 2000) and Littlewoods v Ishfaq (judgment dated 9 June 2000). For further information on these two (meaningless) cases, see pp 11-12 of the December 2009 report by Citizens Advice: Unreasonable demands. (b) a table setting out brief details of 96 County Court claims issued by retailer clients of RLP over the ten-year period 2001 – 2010; and © a table setting out brief details of 12 cases 'sent for issue' in March and April 2011, including the CAB cases (featured in our December 2010 report Uncivil recovery) of ‘Kate’ and ‘M’. Our analysis of the 96 court claims issued by retailer clients of RLP between 2001 and 2010 showed that: Seventy-three (76 per cent) of the 96 claims resulted in a default judgment only, 13 were admitted/settled, and five could not be served on the defendant. Only three claims (all issued in 2005) were defended, but in each case the outcome is given by RLP as ”unknown”. Hmm, strange that! In the remaining two cases, the outcome was not clear from the document, and we sought clarification from RLP. You probably won’t be surprised to hear that this clarification has never been forthcoming from RLP. All but 25 of the 96 claims were issued before 1 January 2007. No claims were issued in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2007 or 2009, and only three claims were issued in 2008. Forty-eight (50 per cent) of the 96 claims were issued by just four retailers: Boots (22), Arcadia Group (10), Argos (8) and Sainsbury's (8). The other retailers included: Allders (3 claims); Dixons (3); Debenhams (1); Early Learning Centre (2); Halfords (3); Lloyds Pharmacy (3); Roadchef (1); Superdrug (1); Tesco (4); TK Maxx (2); and Wilkinson (1). (NB: Sainsbury’s is of course no longer a client of RLP; it first moved its civil recovery business to Drydens, then dumped them in favour of law firm DWF in early 2011. I have reason to believe that Halfords stopped using RLP some years ago. And I haven’t seen any demands issued on behalf of Argos, ELC or Lloyds Pharmacy for some considerable time, either.) Of the 22 claims issued in 2009 or 2010 (all in 2010 in fact, as no claims issued in 2009), 12 (55 per cent) were issued by Boots; three by Lloyds Pharmacy; two by Arcadia Group; two by the now defunct Game; and one each by Roadchef, SSP Air (who?), and TK Maxx. Of these 22 claims, 17 resulted in a default judgment only, and the other five were settled without a hearing/trial. Of the 15 claims issued in 2001, eleven (73 per cent) were for less than £155. However, of the 81 claims issued since 1 January 2002, none was for less than £200, and only five were for less than £500. Of the 22 claims issued since 1 January 2009, only three were for less than £1,500, and the median sum claimed was some £3,700. This suggests that most if not all of the claims issued since 1 January 2002 related to employee theft, not (alleged) shoplifting. In my next post, I’ll look at the 12 cases ‘sent for issue’ by RLP in 2011.
  11. You could be right - I don't have even an A Level in Law! But I am advised by some very, very clever lawyers, and they have advised that there is also the question of the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008. These make it an offence - punishable by up to two years' imprisonment - for traders to engage in unfair commercial practices (and the Law Commission has recently confirmed that this includes misleading and/or aggressive demands for money in relation to e.g. alleged shoplifting). And I am advised by the very, very clever lawyers that, in any one case of a misleading or aggressive civil recovery demand, both the agent AND the retailer would be liable for prosecution. And, of course, any civil recovery demand for which there is no legal cause of action is by definition misleading, unless it makes clear to the recipient that there is no possibility of court action if the demand is not paid. In other words, unless the demand makes clear that it is no more than a request for 'compensation', which can be safely ignored. We don't see so many cases of a demand issued by Drydens these days, but it is clear from those we have seen that Drydens has in recent months substantially revised the content of its demand letters, to the point where they would appear to be little more than 'requests' for money. Now, why might that be, I wonder?
  12. Yep, breakdown by gender: Gender of recipient of demand Gender % of all cases Female 61 Male 39 As for mental health issues/vulnerability, yes: of the adult recipients of a demand (i.e. excluding known juveniles), 12 per cent are recorded as having serious mental health issues or other exceptional vulnerability (e.g. illiterate, heavily pregnant, no English, street homeless). I know from comments made in response to my previous posting of this figure on this thread that some are surprised that this figure is not somewhat higher, but it is important to note that our reporting process records only serious mental health issues or other exceptional vulnerability. And there is no doubt an inevitable degree of under-reporting.
  13. Yes, a CAB in the north east has been assisting a security guard to claim unfair dismissal. He was sacked for not 'creating' enough civil recovery claim incidents.
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