Rlp

[old bill]

It certainly makes interesting reading to see all the people on here, ex police officers and such, going out of their way to offer advice to thieves on how to avoid incurring these 'civil recovery' costs. I would personally doubt the legitimacy that a lot of these people have done the jobs they say they have.

Got any hard evidence to back up your statements?

Shoplifting causes billions of pounds of loss year in, year out.

And how much is the long-suffering consumer ripped-off to the tune of by the retail industry every year, eh? Which industry has been caused cheating the consumer out of millions of pounds? Oh. It's the retail industry - and they got caught by statutory regulators and got fined for doing it.

How many decent people do you suppose have lost their jobs due to cutbacks as a knock on effect. Decent people who want to work and pay tax, provide for their families in the proper way by going out to work and not playing the benefits system.

Where are you drawing this dross from, the IDS Bumper Book of Fairy Stories? What you've written is political rhetoric.

Are we doing them people a service by essentially offering legal loopholes for shoplifters to avoid punishment?

The courts are the authority appointed by Parliament for punishing offenders, not the retail industry behaving as if it has the legal authority to operate an alternative justice system, which it has not.

If someone is detained wrongfully I agree whoever is responsible should be dealt with in a severe disciplinary scenario.

I have yet to see any retail security staff subjected to "severe disciplinary action" by employers for wrongful arrest, unlawful detention and imprisonment. What I have seen is retailers doing their utmost to bully those they have wrongfully arrested and accused of shoplifting into submission.

But this is an example of the society we live in where there are threads telling people how to avoid shoplifting penalties...............If I started a thread stating 'I've been caught shoplifting, can someone help me I've had a letter saying I owe money' I'd fully deserve to be told its entirely my own fault and I have no right to expect sympathy. That I chose to act dishonestly, with a lack of integrity, and that people like me cause honest hardworking people their jobs through my greed and immoral compass.

The reason the retail industry's access to the criminal courts is restricted is due to them clogging the criminal justice system with cases involving goods of nominal value. In one case, a Circuit Judge at a Crown Court threw out a case of an alleged shoplifter who had allegedly "stolen" an item which had a total value of £0.65. Yes. £0.65. It costs a minimum of £2,000 of taxpayer's money to take a case through a magistrates court. And that is for a straightforward "Guilty" plea. Is it right the retail industry, which is a consortium of corporate bodies, should be subsidised by the taxpayer? No. It is not right.

What kind of a world are we living in where we offer support to assist shoplifters to continue behaving as they do knowing there are ways out of everything.

90% of shoplifting is carried out by organised gangs, 9% by retail employees and the remaining 1% by, mainly, drug addicts. We offer support to people who have been targeted by incompetent retail security.

Why not some proper life advice, have some self respect, some human decency and don't steal from shops!!

Why not suggest to the retail industry it stops ripping off the consumer?

 

When you have quite finished speaking out of the lower end of your alimentary canal, you might wish to read and inwardly digest the bold red text.

[old bill]

I worked in the retail industry before I joined the police, SabreSheep, and what you say is absolutely spot-on. The retail industry is its own worst enemy. Even when you point out the industry's shortcomings, the response of its senior management appears to be along the lines of "Stick Fingers In Ears and Sing 'La La La We're Not Listening'".

[old bill]

I am what they call "Old School". Apart from a group of decent, honest police officers in individual police forces - the Tories got rid of the older more experienced officers through redundancy which raises questions as to why - the ones you have masquerading as serving police officers aren't fit to hold a British Rail Travel Warrant, let alone a warrant of the Office of Constable. Police officers who pander to the wishes of corporate entities are not acting in accordance with the law and, certainly, it raises questions as to whether this brings them into conflict with Police Conduct Regulations. Certainly, the oath of attestation every Constable swears does not include any declaration that they will protect the interests of corporate and commercial entities above those and/or in place of those of individual persons.

 

Once again, you have made arguments which make out the retail industry to be the victim. I feel myself and others who have worked in the retail industry have highlighted the reality and that is that the retail industry is its own worst enemy. 90% of all retail theft is carried out by organised criminal gangs. You also conveniently neglect to mention the poor reliability record of security equipment and the shortcomings and inherent failures of EPOS. Retail staff I have spoken to and who work for major retailers freely admit that EPOS has a high failure rate, especially the software used to operate it. Mis-scans are all too frequent. (A mis-scan is where the operator/customer passes an item in front of the laser scanner, the EPOS unit beeps to confirm it has scanned the item, but it does not register the item on the tally. I have had this happen to me and only discovered a mis-scan had taken place when I got outside the store. And that was after going through a manned checkout during a busy period. I went back inside and pointed this out to them and they then admitted that such incidents were not infrequent.).

 

You criticise Restorative Justice. RJ is there to allow commonsense to prevail and prevent instances of retailers clogging up the criminal courts with petty cases, often to the detriment of victims of more serious crimes. Alleging a police officer is incompetent because they use RJ and not what the retailer wants is an insult to the good, honest and decent police officers who use commonsense and shows contempt for the law by the retail industry.

 

The officer who refused to provide you with the details of alleged offenders was acting correctly and lawfully. The inspector who overruled them needs to go back to the training school or be investigated. Retailers are not entitled to be provided with the details of alleged offenders until after case has been disposed of by the CPS and the courts. The reasons for this are manyfold, but the main one is to ensure compliance with Article 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998 (Right to A Fair Hearing and Presumption of Innocence Until Guilt is Proven Before a Court of Law) which the police, CPS and courts are required to comply with, they being public authorities within the meaning of Section 6 of the Act.

 

The Civil Recovery industry's modus operandi is legally-questionable. However, there is legislation on the way that will make it very difficult for the Civil Recovery industry to operate, thanks to the indefensible and unacceptable actions of operators within the Civil Recovery industry. The Civil Recovery industry has brought this upon itself and I have no doubt there will be an almighty howl of protest from the retail industry.

 

Civil Recovery, in the UK, has been very one-sided and if there had been a compulsory levy on retailers to finance a statutory fund to compensate those whose have been wrongfully/falsely accused of retail theft to balance it out, then your arguments might have more credibility.

 

However, now the legislation is on its way, will there be a thread entitled "RIP - RLP"?

[old bill]

I refer you to this little gem. The Consumer Protection From Unfair Trading regulations amendments 2014 which cover the the use of civil recovery.

 

s16 is very relevant

 

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/343753/bis-14-1430-misleading-and-aggressive-selling-rights-consumer-protection-amendment-regulations-2014-guidance.pdf

 

Also this thread

 

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?423208-Retail-Loss-Prevention-A-new-Low&p=4523005&viewfull=1#post4523005

 

And this is from a 'reputable' company who are acting as the agents of the stores who are liable for their agents actions.

 

Thank you for posting up the piece of legislation I alluded to but could not remember in an earlier post, Silver Fox. Retailers seem to think using the likes of RLP to demand money from people won't result in them being held to account. Unfortunately, they will be held to account whatever, no matter how much they protest it was RLP. Harassment by Proxy is an offence by Section 7, Protection from Harassment Act 1997.