Civil Recovery

trisontana

There is a very good article in this week's Private Eye over the above practice when shops try to take alleged shop-lifters to the County Court and claim money that bears no relation to the actual loss, and when the police say that there is no case to answer. The reason I'm highlighting this is that there are parallels between the companies that use “civil recovery” and the behaviour of private parking companies.

To quote from the article:-

The Law Commission said in April that these fixed sums (demanded) have no legal basis. If the theft caused significant disruption to the retailer's, then the law allows the store to claim for the staff time diverted to dealing with the effects of the disruption. However the store would need to prove that this disruption was significant, and that staff time was actually diverted. The law does not allow stores to apportion the overheads incurred for security and surveillance to individual shop lifters.

Substitute "landowner's loss" for “disruption” and you are then talking about the sort of sums demanded by PPCs.

The article continues:-

The Law Commission and Citizens and Advice noticed that for all their bombastic legal letters, when alleged shop lifters refuse to pay, almost no court action follows.


Sound familiar?

bromsgrovebarry

Welcome to the new pseudo-legal 'fining' industry. We also have hotels like Travelodge that 'fine' guests for smoking in non smoking rooms. I do not support car park abuse, retail theft or flouting smoke free rules but I will fight tooth and nail to stop scumbags making exorbitant profits from their vigilante businesses. Professional thieves know all about Civil Recovery as well as their 'human rights' so CR does very little to stop retail crime. As for Travelodge, I do know which is worse, the smell of stale tobacco or mildew in their rooms.

bargepole

There's a simple solution I use when I'm unfortunate enough to be booked into a Travelodge by my company.

Go to the window outside the room, pick up a few dogends, and place them on the windowsill outside. Then go to reception, and get the duty manager to come to the room and show him that any evidence of smoking must have come from a previous guest, couldn't possibly me be, so don't send me one of your invoices.

Then settle down for the evening with a six pack of Desperado and 20 Marlboro Gold - excellent!