waiting for restaurant to take payment - how long reasonable

Valli

How would you demonstrate they hadn't?

tir21

Valli wrote: »

How would you demonstrate they hadn't?

its for the prosecution to prove guilt not for the defendant to prove their innocence

Valli

No, it's for the jury to decide, actually -


However, the Court reformulated the test for dishonesty. It held that in future,
“ ... a jury must first of all decide whether according to the ordinary standards of reasonable and honest people what was done was dishonest... If it was dishonest... then the jury must consider whether the defendant himself must have realised that what he was doing was by those standards dishonest. ” Hence the test for dishonesty must be both subjective and objective. As a result, we have ‘the Ghosh test', which jury must consider before reaching a verdict on dishonesty :

1. Was the act one that an ordinary decent person (normally considered to be the ubiquitous ‘The man on the Clapham omnibus’) would consider to be dishonest (the objective test)? If so :
2. Must the accused have realised that what he was doing was, by those standards, dishonest (the subjective test)?

Note that it is not essential for a person to admit that they acted in a way that they knew to be dishonest, it is probably enough that they knew others would think their behaviour was dishonest, or that they thought that what they were doing was ‘wrong’.


(Ghosh test)

tir21

Valli wrote: »

And what the law says is -

'If you leave a restaurant knowing you have been undercharged for a meal or that items you have had were not added to your bill you can be charged with theft' under the Theft Act 1978'. (Making off without payment).

can you tell us what section of the theft act states

" if you leave a restaurant knowing you have been undercharged for a meal or that items you have had were not added to your bill you can be charged with theft' under the Theft Act 1978'. "

or did you just make that up?

VitaK

Im at a loss to why they shouldnt use the voucher. You left the voucher with them and an unpaid balance. If you didn't want them to use the voucher, you should have taken it with you when you left.

I think 17 min is very long time to wait once you made it clear you wanted to pay.

Valli

it was my summary of section 3 of the Theft Act 1978, as it pertains to my assertion that to make off without paying is theft.

It doesn't particularly refer to a restaurant; the section refers to any making off (ie leaving the premises) without paying for goods or services received. In this case it's goods. Equally (and this is fairly commonly used) it's this section that is applied when someone uses a taxi and makes off without paying, a fairly frequent occurrance, apparently.

tir21

Valli wrote: »

it was my summary of section 3 of the Theft Act 1978, as it pertains to my assertion that to make off without paying is theft.

i don't think was a very good summary because section 3 contains the words;

" and with intent to avoid payment of the amount due"

the amount due is whatever is on the bill. there is nothing in section 3 about the customer realising the bill is incorrect

likewise if a taxi driver asks for £ 10 but the meter says £ 11, then no where in the bill is it specified that an offence will have been committed if £10 is paid.

Hintza

tir21 wrote: »

i think this episode raises some interesting questions

Aye; your lack of capital letters in your posts and your moral fibre.

tir21

Hintza wrote: »

Aye; your lack of capital letters in your posts and your moral fibre.

capital letters are overated. my morals involve me paying massive restaurant chains what they ask me to pay them.

it would be immoral to never have had any intention to pay the bill

tir21

"and with intent to avoid payment of the amount due"

this part of the act would also make it unlikely that someone who waited 17 minutes to pay their bill could be successfully prosecuted

someone intent on avoiding payment would not have waited that long before leaving