Theft or not...
Discussion
Whilst queuing to pay for goods at my local Tescos last week a gentleman decided rather than wait, he decided to walk past the counter with his money, leave it at the counter and walk out. The nice lady tried to explain that she had to scan his items but the gent was having none of it.
So is this theft/shoplifting. He had paid but has no receipt.
So is this theft/shoplifting. He had paid but has no receipt.
PurpleMoonlight said:
gcollins said:
How i see this is the store only want to scan items for their benefit. How often do you go to a small newsagent and have a paper or a bar of chocolate scanned.....not often.
The have to be scanned to ascertain the price.The retailer in the OP had no way of knowing what goods were taken or if the correct purchase price was left without scanning the items.
MagneticMeerkat said:
It's interesting.
The bit about payment in the Theft Act effectively covers taking items that aren't for sale and leaving payment. For instance if you took away the dustbin at the side of my garage, but posted money sufficient to equate to its value through my letterbox, or even in excess of its worth, then theft would have been committed. There was no contract to sell and buy - the bin was obviously not intended for sale so the taker is dishonest.
Now a shop displays goods for sale. This is an invitation to enter into a contract with them to buy the goods. In this case the man picked up goods to value potentially unknown, then left money on the side. We don't know his thought processes. He may have kept a record of all the unit prices as he was going round, totalled up on a piece of paper, and left the correct amount. Alternatively he may have just left what he thought the goods were worth. He may even, in frustration, have paid the shop less.
Therefore we start to come back to dishonesty. It would have to be tested in court: his thought process would be key really. If he was thinking along the lines of: "This is probably enough money, if it isn't I don't care and they can p
s off" then we have dishonesty. We don't know that but it's a possible scenario. Therefore potentially enough to charge for theft, if not perhaps convict for it. Leaving an amount of money doesn't negate dishonesty as in the example above.
There was only one item and it was a newspaper so payment was probably correct. The bit about payment in the Theft Act effectively covers taking items that aren't for sale and leaving payment. For instance if you took away the dustbin at the side of my garage, but posted money sufficient to equate to its value through my letterbox, or even in excess of its worth, then theft would have been committed. There was no contract to sell and buy - the bin was obviously not intended for sale so the taker is dishonest.
Now a shop displays goods for sale. This is an invitation to enter into a contract with them to buy the goods. In this case the man picked up goods to value potentially unknown, then left money on the side. We don't know his thought processes. He may have kept a record of all the unit prices as he was going round, totalled up on a piece of paper, and left the correct amount. Alternatively he may have just left what he thought the goods were worth. He may even, in frustration, have paid the shop less.
Therefore we start to come back to dishonesty. It would have to be tested in court: his thought process would be key really. If he was thinking along the lines of: "This is probably enough money, if it isn't I don't care and they can p
s off" then we have dishonesty. We don't know that but it's a possible scenario. Therefore potentially enough to charge for theft, if not perhaps convict for it. Leaving an amount of money doesn't negate dishonesty as in the example above. Gassing Station | Speed, Plod & the Law | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff