Make them pay us for their errors !!

cheapscate

aaronmanz wrote: »

i don't agree with Cheapscate who cannot even wait a minute or two for the store to put it right.

it is not just a minute or two as I have made clear - it has taken up to 15 minutes on one occassion and it keeps happening - however it has now got to the point where it is obvious the system in my Asdsa is failing customers yet we are still expected to happily be inconvenienced - well I'm not happy and I'm not prepared to have my bags rummaged through each time.

I think RobertoMoir's post, above, about the rules not having pushed your personal limits is excellent.

diggerman123

This happened to my brother and his wife at currys recently. They bought a printer and on leaving th alarm sounded and a security guard physically grabbed them both. Absoloutely disgraceful and no apology offered.I am firing off a letter to their head office about it.

Storck

diggerman123 wrote: »

This happened to my brother and his wife at currys recently. They bought a printer and on leaving th alarm sounded and a security guard physically grabbed them both. Absoloutely disgraceful and no apology offered.I am firing off a letter to their head office about it.

Why not let your brother and/or his wife write to the head office if they are bothered about it. Surely they would take it more seriously if it came from them rather than a third party. I'm not saying you shouldn't write it but address it from them.

Lokolo_2

RobertoMoir wrote: »

Because they don't, they have no powers to detain you, no powers to search you and no powers to search the things you have with you.

There is such a thing as Citizens arrest, so technically the Guard could detain the person until the police get there, who could then search the bags. So you see how complicated a small situation becomes just because the person is being difficult :rolleyes:

RobertoMoir

aaronmanz wrote: »

There is such a thing as Citizens arrest, so technically the Guard could detain the person until the police get there, who could then search the bags. So you see how complicated a small situation becomes just because the person is being difficult :rolleyes:

Part of one of my former jobs used to include arresting people which meant I had extensive training in the process and legal wrinkles, so I suspect I know a bit more about it than you.

You can't just arrest someone because you feel like it, even if you have the power to arrest people as part of your job, and arresting customers for breaking a shop's internal rules would essentially come under that heading.

The rules for a citizen's arrest are in fact quite strict & "a bit more complex than that". To make a citizen's arrest, you need to know without doubt that an offence has been or is in the process of being committed, or have reasonable grounds to believe this to be the case. That's a greatly simplified outline but I think it captures the spirit.

Now of course, if a shop's security guard reckons someone is shoplifting they could go ahead and make an arrest, as the above conditions would be satisfied. It's not as easy as all that, but let's pretend it is for now rather than get into a long boring debate about trivia. Either way though, they can't arrest someone "until the police arrive to search their bags" because citizens don't have the power to detain people under those circumstances. And the police themselves need reasonable grounds to carry out a search remember?

And they can't arrest someone for refusing to have their bag checked! What would be the offence they were arresting under? They'd be in trouble themselves for unlawful arrest (and then we're onto various charges against the shop and arresting employee for how they behaved during the arrest) very quickly if they tried to arrest someone for "failing to let me search their bags because store policy says so" and they couldn't reasonable (imho) arrest for suspicion of shoplifting on those grounds either due to a lack of evidence.

Oh, and IIRC in theory anyone can arrest an escaped prisoner, so if one turns up in a shop then the security guards can feel free to have at them. Good luck with that if you haven't got the right equipment, backup and training. I wouldn't fancy it myself now that I don't have the first two to hand and the third one is out of date for me.

real1314

RobertoMoir wrote: »

To make a citizen's arrest, you need to know without doubt that an offence has been or is in the process of being committed, or have reasonable grounds to believe this to be the case. That's a greatly simplified outline but I think it captures the spirit.

Now of course, if a shop's security guard reckons someone is shoplifting they could go ahead and make an arrest, as the above conditions would be satisfied. It's not as easy as all that, but let's pretend it is for now rather than get into a long boring debate about trivia. Either way though, they can't arrest someone "until the police arrive to search their bags" because citizens don't have the power to detain people under those circumstances - They do - a citizen's arrest would cover this. And the police themselves need reasonable grounds to carry out a search remember?

And they can't arrest someone for refusing to have their bag checked! What would be the offence they were arresting under?

Reasonable grounds to believe that an offence of shoplifting has occurred, based on the triggering of the security alarm and on the refusal to allow a voluntary search. As the majority of people who have not committed an offence would allow a search; and conversely a majority of people who HAD committed an offence would not allow a search, it can reasonably be deduced that it is more probable than not that an offence has occurred and that it is more probable than not that the person has committed it therefore it would be a reasonable act.

They'd be in trouble themselves for unlawful arrest very quickly if they tried to arrest someone for "failing to let me search their bags because store policy says so" and they couldn't reasonable (imho) arrest for suspicion of shoplifting on those grounds either due to a lack of evidence.

They wouldn't face unlawful arrest issues. You've confused evidence for reasonable belief with evidence of an offence. They need "reasonable grounds to believe". The evidence for that would be the alarm activation (which is the first piece of evidence) and then the refusal - this act forms a piece of evidence too. Those 2 pieces would provide evidence to be used in forming an opinion on whether there are reasonable grounds to suspect.

Evidence of an offence would lead to a charge, rather than arrest.


**The behaviour of any staff during an arrest is a completely separate isssue.
.

The question you have to ask is:-

Would the actions of the staff be seen as reasonable given the circumstances?

RobertoMoir

real1314 wrote: »

The question you have to ask is:-

Would the actions of the staff be seen as reasonable given the circumstances?

I was thinking of stores who practice bag searches in general, not when an alarm had gone off, which would make things slightly different, as you say.

A couple of points do spring to mind though:

If the tag/alarm mechanism could be demonstrated to be unreliable, as per the anecdotes here, I wonder if it could eventually be discounted as reasonable grounds for stopping someone on its own?

I'd personally suggest "reasonable suspicion" of shoplifting would have to include seeing someone take something and attempting to leave without paying for it, but IANAL of course. I'm not sure that refusing someone permission to search you would be reasonable grounds for an arrest - shops don't have the right to search you or your property, and I think that the idea that someone is guilty by implication merely because they stand up for their rights is dangerous.

Another point - several people may be walking in/out of a large shop's large doorway at once (consider the entrance to a place like Tescos, for example). An alarm goes off - Which one of the twenty people going through the doors at that time do you have reasonable grounds to make a citizen's arrest on? And before you say "the one who refused to have their bags searched", then lets suppose that several of those people refused to have their bags checked. You can't say you have reasonable grounds to arrest them all because of the alarm can you?

Either way, with regards to the idea of a citizen's arrest for people who won't let shop staff inspect their bags, I think the main point is that "it isn't as simple as that". You certainly can't hold someone just so the police can search their bags for you, which is what aaronmanz seemed to be implying, we can agree on that, yes?

Finally, store detectives currently only make a citizen's arrest when 100% (or near as make no odds) certain an offence has been committed, I believe. Why do you suppose that is?

charliepink_2

This has happened twice to me in recent yrs. First in Asda i was buying my daughter a 'surprise' present so sent her in with her dad ahead of me. I met up with them at the front of the store and went through only to have the present beep. I had to go back to the person at customer services with receipt and take out the present. Luckily my daughter didnt see what is was.

And the other strangely was a changing bag bought from Toys r us. I went shopping with my new born daughter arrived in a store and beeped i had bought nothing at this point but was asked what i had in my bag but had nothing apart from baby things. Again i went in another shop and it beeped. A helpful lad from Woolworths helped me to find it and it was a barcode at the bottom of the bag inside under all the baby things.

I just thought it was a strange place to put a barcode?

Lokolo_2

RobertoMoir wrote: »

You certainly can't hold someone just so the police can search their bags for you, which is what aaronmanz seemed to be implying, we can agree on that, yes?

Finally, store detectives currently only make a citizen's arrest when 100% (or near as make no odds) certain an offence has been committed, I believe. Why do you suppose that is?

No, I think you have misunderstood my point aswell, i am NOT suggesting that anyone refusing a bag search because of alarm activations should be arrested! What i AM suggesting is that it is a bit suspicious refusing a member of staff to check your bags. If you had nothing to hide, you would let the staff help as they are just making sure all tags have been removed from what you have paid for! You mention human rights several times, however sometimes common sense needs to overrule :rolleyes:, honest shoppers will let staff help them.

I also know under what circumstances citizens arrest could be used as i've received training for that, you would only stop a suspected shoplifter if you'd seen them conceal an item on them, and followed them throughout the store and seen them make no attempt to pay for the item while walking towards the exit, they have only commited a crime once they have left the shop so you would stop them outside and make the arrest there, but only if you were 100% certain with no doubt that they still have the concealed item on them!

RobertoMoir

aaronmanz wrote: »

No, I think you have misunderstood my point aswell, i am NOT suggesting that anyone refusing a bag search because of alarm activations should be arrested!

Fair enough, though when you actually write...

There is such a thing as Citizens arrest, so technically the Guard could detain the person until the police get there, who could then search the bags. So you see how complicated a small situation becomes just because the person is being difficult :rolleyes:

... I'm sure you can see why I might be confused.

aaronmanz wrote: »

What i AM suggesting is that it is a bit suspicious refusing a member of staff to check your bags. If you had nothing to hide, you would let the staff help as they are just making sure all tags have been removed from what you have paid for! You mention human rights several times, however sometimes common sense needs to overrule :rolleyes:,

Everyone defines "common sense" as "doing it the way that seems obvious to me". For me, "common sense" would be not bothering to shop in places where their security system is fundamentally flawed as to generate false alarms a lot of the time (note I'm not talking about one-off stuff here, we all accept that sometimes things just happen no matter what, right?) because I don't want people searching me/my property because I'm a very private person who likes to keep my business to myself in a lot of ways.

aaronmanz wrote: »

honest shoppers will let staff help them.

Agreed, at least in so far as honest shoppers are more likely than dishonest ones to let staff look in their bags. But I don't agree with the implication that anyone who refuses to let people look in their bags is dishonest.

aaronmanz wrote: »

I also know under what circumstances citizens arrest could be used as i've received training for that, you would only stop a suspected shoplifter if you'd seen them conceal an item on them, and followed them throughout the store and seen them make no attempt to pay for the item while walking towards the exit, they have only commited a crime once they have left the shop so you would stop them outside and make the arrest there, but only if you were 100% certain with no doubt that they still have the concealed item on them!

Well yes, this is what I was trying to get across to real1314. To make a citizen's arrest you need to be certain an offence has been committed or is about to be unless you take action, or so close to certain that there is a very, very small margin for error; and if you fail to do so you could end up in a lot of trouble, hence stores who have a policy of having their store detective make citizen's arrests of shoplifters have to be very careful.

I'm sure the training you mention included making sure the person understood they were being arrested, and very careful discussion of what sort of force, etc. is reasonable in making the arrest too. Not that different to the training for law enforcement in a way.