No supermarket will stop you till you've passed the checkout without paying. How on earth could they prove you weren't going to pay otherwise?
They will, and often do. We had a shoplifter arrested in the store when I worked in Homebase for stuffing a bag of compost up the back of his jumper in the garden centre area and then concealing it with a large coat, in summer. There was no need to let him leave first. Attempting to shoplift things is an offence! Here is the
relevant law:
(5)The Criminal Attempts Act 1981 is amended as follows—
(a)in section 1 (attempting to commit an offence) after subsection (4) there is inserted—
“(5)This section also applies to low-value shoplifting (which is defined in, and is triable only summarily by virtue of, section 22A of the Magistrates' Courts Act 1980).”;
Just last night I called in Lidl and didn't have a £1 coin for a trolley and all the baskets were in use, so I had to carry stuff and stuff it in pockets, then I put it all on the conveyor belt at the till-taking care I'd got everything out-no one stopped me in store claiming I wasn't going to pay!
So? I ran a red light once and didn't get a ticket.
The point is that for offences which require intent, inchoate or not, your actions can signify intent. Here, you give a reasonable explanation why you would put some of your items in your pocket, and I assume you also had the means to pay on you, which would be good evidence against any allegation that your actions amounted to an attempt to shoplift things.
If you don't believe me, here is someone getting charged for attempted shoplifting...in a Lidl!
https://www.hampshire.police.uk/new...sault-and-attempted-shoplifting-in-aldershot/
PS: if you find yourself with a coin for the trolley at Lidl, ask and they will use a token to unlock it for you!
Hi All, so after 4 emails from Northern Rail, they are dropping the case as they have insufficient evidence. They gave me 6 dates where a ticket was re-used, all in a span of 2 weeks. I questioned whether the app/conductors scanner had been faulty for this period due to have travelled the same route for 5 years, yet it seems i would commit this ticket offence for just 2 weeks. The dates given were also back in September and none since which also says to me maybe it was their side of things. On the dates given i had not purchased another ticket on my banking transactions and therefore had no explanation how i had been let off with invalid tickets. They haven't really put up a fight to this and seem to have just accepted defeat and closed to matter which makes me think could it have been something on their end? How many people are they scaring with the threat of court who will just pay the fine and move on? I can honestly say i have never not had a valid ticket on me therefore in my eyes was in the right (albeit i have been very lazy) i have always produced another ticket which was valid. Rail companies/gov can do one as far as im concerned. Overpriced, always delayed and cancelled. The UK is an absolute sh!t show
That's a good result for you, and well done for pushing back. It does seem they have insufficient evidence to mount any sort of charge, if the only thing they have is a set of scans, some of which were duplicates. This would never ever pass muster on its own in a court; this is an offence of intent which is much more difficult to prove than just a Bylaw "you didn't have a valid ticket" (for which you'd need to basically be caught, on the train or at the station, red handed). Train companies do often send correspondence alleging offences to see if you will confess to wrongdoing. It's not a great way to operate, but I'm glad you got a result in the end.