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Having popped in late last night for some essential saturated fat, it got me wondering about the security at these places. No one there last night but there is normally some form of uniformed 'security' looking at monitors, picking his nose etc.
If the alarm had gone off when I left my immediate reaction would have been to stop and go back into the shop - but why? I know that I don't steal and had no high value items with protection on them so what rights would security have had to stop me and search me? Would they have had to see me steal in order to justify a stop? What would happen if I just told them to jog on and carried on to my car - if they grabbed me I assume I could 'defend' myself?
Not planning on doing a Madeley but just sparked my curiosity! Anybody know the real law in such a situation?I guess these thinsg could snowball quite rapidly!
Maybe I'm scarred - I still have bad memories from >30yrs ago at Virgin Records in Oxford Street when some unicell store 'detective' dragged me back in claiming that I nicked 'something'!! Got searched in the manager's office and generally treated like scum until they realised they'd ballsed up. Ended up with £20 to spend in store after practically forcing my parents to do something about it!
When I worked in a supermarket the security was just a deterrent, they were not to challenge anyone or to follow people out of the shop. To be fair they were about 100 years old so this was probably wise though I don't know the reasoning behind it.
When I worked in Safeway as a teenager, the company policy was that, in the event of a shoplifter being detected, every male member of staff was required to follow them out of the building and the first one to reach them was to challenge them with a pre-prepared script " Excuse me, Sir, We think that you may have left the store without paying for some goods and we'd like you to come back inside to discuss it".
Most of the time they'd just walk back in but sometimes they'd bolt.
Company policy was that all the guys had to chase them until they caught them and use reasonable force to return them to the store.
Policy was changed after some part time Saturday boy got stabbed to death by a shoplifter somewhere I seem to recall
You can't challenge them until they've left the store though.
what rights would security have had to stop me and search me? Would they have had to see me steal in order to justify a stop?
IDK what 'rights' a civilian store detective has to detain someone against their will but that aside, I'd have thought that the alarm going off creates the same sort of situation as actually seeing someone hide a chicken up their arse or whatever they do, or reasonable suspicion that they're nicking something.
I'm neither a massive libertarian, nor a fascist dictator, but in this respect
What would happen if I just told them to jog on and carried on to my car
if you know you haven't nicked anything then why would you refuse to prove it (I know there are some that love this sort of situation just so they can get all barrack room lawyery over it)
(not you specifically, you= people in general)
Interesting on the policies bit but what is the law I wonder? Come back in; no; get grabbed; smack! Who gets arrested?
just go in very early to nick stuff, the security guards aren't normally on until 10am
Has anyone else noticed that the cctv monitoring station by the door is nearly always marked as number two.
I assume so when you walk past it you subliminally assume that while there may be no one manning it there is a cctv station number one you haven't seen and could well be being monitored.
In short, you can arrest and detain someone as londg as certain criteria are met.
We locked a guy in a meat freezer for an hour once because he started wrecking the office. The cops were cool with it 😉
section 24A of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1974 states that a person other than a Police Constable (PC) may arrest anyone who is in the act of committing an indictable offence; or whom the person has reasonable grounds to suspect is committing an indictable offence. Indictable offences are a topic for another day but in short they are offences which can be tried in the Crown Court. Section 24A therefore affords a citizen (or more commonly security guards) the right to effect an arrest. However it is not carte blanche authority for them to go off arresting all and sundry. An arrest can only be made if it does not appear reasonably practicable for a PC to effect the arrest, AND if the person making the arrest has reasonable grounds to believe that such an arrest is necessary to prevent the person being arrested from: (a) causing physical injury to himself or any other person; (b) suffering physical injury; (c) causing loss of or damage to property; or (d) making off before a constable can assume responsibility for him. The security guard therefore needs to be very careful and ensure that the above criteria is fulfilled and even then the arrest may be considered to be unlawful unless the subject of the arrest is informed of what is being done doing as soon as is reasonably possible or if unreasonable force is used.
https://www.forbessolicitors.co.uk/blog/insurance/2014/03/shoplifter-conundrum/
It's not the law that stops you getting dragged back into the store. It's the retailers health and safety policy not to put their staff in potential danger.
Wasn't the case back in the day though.
Friend's father does this. From what I've talked to him about:
* He's there 90% of the time as a deterrent
* Most situations are dealt with with a quick "I don't think you paid for that" "Um, I think you're right, I'll just go and sort that out..." "There's a good chap, don't come back." type conversation.
* If someone swings for him or gets abusive, he backs straight off and calls the police. The police tend to take that reasonably seriously (and a surprising number of people shoplift in cars registered to their home address).
* Sometimes people caught due to shoplifting are Very Naughty People (tm).
My first visit to Home Bargains yesterday and there was a security guard at the door. Couldn't believe how many people were in there, it was like a Saturday. Goods were piled high on shelves with everything you could possibly want or need. I noticed their food was being snapped up by all and sundry, anyone tried it?
My first visit to Home Bargains yesterday and there was a security guard at the door.
You know that's just a cardboard cut out, right?
No it wasn't perchy, reckon I can tell the difference!
🤣
Like the VNP acronym 👍
If the alarm had gone off when I left my immediate reaction would have been to stop and go back into the shop – but why? I know that I don’t steal and had no high value items with protection on them so what rights would security have had to stop me and search me?
So to answer your question, based on the links above. The security guard can make a citizens arrest if he/she have reasonable grounds to believe you've commited a crime. The alarms going of would create part of that. They don't have the right to search you, but not allowing him to look in your bag creates even more grounds for suspicion. At that point their perfectly within their rights to detain you untill the police can arrive.
I'm pretty sure the security guard on our local Morrisons is to stop the kids pissing about too much when they come in at 3pm for energy drink and pie refills
We locked a guy in a meat freezer
You are Jimmy Conway and I claim my 5 fur coats
It really depends on the Shop and it's location.
Usually they're just there as a deterrent, you'd be amazed how many older, fairly well off people feel entitled enough to 'forget to pay for something' if they think it's over-priced. They're also there to follow around kids who look like they might be trying to nick something for a dare or just act the arse because they're bored.
The expansion of self-service tills makes them more useful than ever, they replace 8x Checkout operators on £8 p/h for 1x Checkout operator on their feet and a security guard on £7.44 p/h, and even with some extra shrinkage they make more money.
Usually they're happy to help with trolleys, give directions to customers etc because they're bored and happy to talk to someone. Typically they're older, semi-retired types who ain't gonna be chasing or grabbing anyone. Although we had one "ex forces" "did I tell you I'm ex-forces" "yeah, I was in the forces, did I mention it" "12 years forces me mate" He got shot with an airgun in work once, some kids took a disliking to him (probably with reason) and shot him from the treeline over looking the car park, he screamed on the radio perhaps hoping for an Apache Gunship to turn up, but he just got the 60 year old evening checkout supervisor.
The exception is ASDA, when I worked there the security team thought they were about to storm the Iranian Embassy, even in a middle sized store their was usually 6 on, they worked out of a unmarked locked room, worked different shifts to normal staff so they didn't come in/out at the same time and worked 'undercover' both in the store posing as customers and out back dressed as staff. Generally though they were more concerned with staff stealing than customers and loved to get very physical with anyone they could - that was more than a few years ago though, it might have changed.
My advice to any aspiring thieves is to stick to more upmarket shops in upmarket areas, people who shop in M&S and Waitrose simply won't stand for being accused of 'forgetting to pay for something' and given their margins can afford to have stock walk out the door more than their precious customers being hindered, whereas if you go into an ASDA is a former industrial town customers are used to being badly treated and accept it.
Frankly if you stick to Tesco level and above, you can take pretty much whatever you want and as long as you've 1) bought and paid for something 2) have the money to pay for the thing you stole, you'll never find yourself in the back of a police car, they make the process so impersonal and vague that they could never prove you intended to steal and wouldn't want the publicity - they don't want the comics printing stories about 'Nice Middleclass People(tm)' who are sure they scanned that bottle of wine and are now in court because of it, "another victim of Tesco self-service tills". they save too much money with them.
I often wonder about the stuff outside supermarkets too, plants/bbq charcoal etc - I thought the doors of the shop were the threshold, as soon as you leave without paying for something, then you've stole it. What about the stuff outside?
What about the stuff outside?
That's all free. Fill yer boots and let us know how you get on?
As others said, it depends on the shop but most security are there as a visual deterrent to would be shop lifters, a bit of support to staff with unruly customers etc. If they are going to detain someone then they usually follow SCONE (selection, concealment, observation, non payment, exit). If they see you do ALL of these they will pull you back in. If they miss one of these steps they might pull you back in if they are feeling brave. If they have got it wrong then in this day of litigation it often costs them their job, so usually let them walk on if they missed one of the stages above.
The secret is to assert your dominance* on the way in, put him in a headlock ruffle his hair and call him a nancy boy, let him know you're the alpha male. That way he won't bother you on the way out with your ill gotten gains.
*this only works with male security guards, as everyone knows it is impossible to assert dominance over women.
When I worked in a supermarket in the 1980s the policy with shoplifters was to drag them in to the bakery and beat the shit out them.
I love people's reactions when they walk through the alarm scanners at the doors if they've not de-tagged something. The security guards generally don't even move, I've seen a customer get all flustered & just keep going through like they were trapped by an invisible forcefield.
I used to enjoy it as well when I occasionally carried around a security tag for walking into & out of shops with. No one ever stopped me.
There's something in my wallet that sets off those alarms every time I pass through one - on my way in and out. A rogue bank card, or my work smart card, or something. The only way I'll ever find out what it is would be to empty my wallet at the door and carry each item through individually. Yeah, sod that.
It just happened an hour ago in Morrisons, and in B&Q. It happened somewhere else yesterday. And it's happened literally hundreds of times before.
I've never once been stopped by security.
On this whole security thing...
Having just spent a weekend in London, my advice to anyone that has the inclination to act in a Nefarious Fashion is to try the Science Museum. London Eye, bag searches on way in (when 'security' could be bothered to stop ogling anything in a dress) and searches of bubbles after people exit; Natural History Museum (token bag search on entry); Science Museum "No need sir"...
I can only assume they are hoping that someone blows the place up so that they can claim some insurance to rebuild it - what a depressingly dull place!
I used to enjoy it as well when I occasionally carried around a security tag for walking into & out of shops with. No one ever stopped me
That is incredibly odd.
There’s something in my wallet that sets off those alarms every time I pass through one – on my way in and out. A rogue bank card, or my work smart card, or something. The only way I’ll ever find out what it is would be to empty my wallet at the door and carry each item through individually. Yeah, sod that.
It just happened an hour ago in Morrisons, and in B&Q. It happened somewhere else yesterday. And it’s happened literally hundreds of times before.
I’ve never once been stopped by security.
PDS Mutlipasses set them off I've discovered, in the Casino supermarket in Morzine (where they've got scanners at every door and the tills) you just need to give your best shrug and say "Multipass" and they'll do the same in return.
Seen several cases of shoplifters being detained or wrestled before.
Just two weeks ago at Iceland I saw two women were caught stealing alcohols.
I have also seen a guy walked off with expensive (3 layers jacket I think it was tog 24 or something) at Debenhams two years ago. He tried on it several times then checked the tag (I think it was not tagged) then put it on, gave me a smile, and walked out from the store. Simple.
My other supermarket story is from when I worked at an ASDA while I was at University.
I was a 'Wines and Spirits Assistant', so spent all my time keeping those shelves tidy and all that.
We used to get these huge geezers coming in - especially later on Friday/Saturday evenings... and they'd wander over to my aisles, unzip their puffer jackets to flash me the machetes they kept tucked in there (at least that's what they looked like to my semi stoned face) as a bit of a warning, then pick up whatever they fancied from the shelves that was expensive, and walk straight out the door.
No way was I gonna do anything about that.
There’s something in my wallet that sets off those alarms
Do you have a lot of bank cards? That triggered the alarms for me so I have thinned them out a bit and only carry the ones I am likely to use. Not set an alarm off since.
There’s something in my wallet that sets off those alarms
I think they they can tell from the reaction of the person if they have stolen something. All the people who stop, look in their bag and look around probably are not stealing.
from my experience much more stuff doesn’t get “received” into the warehouse, or or any make the shop floor rather than out the front door.
There was that guy that died when confronted by a security guard. Was on one of them Police, Camera, Action! type programs. The security fella bundled him after he tried to flee, and then shoplifter fell on bottle of spirits and then died of the broken bottle jabbing him in the guts.
Do you have a lot of bank cards?
How many is too many? I've just counted and there's eight, plus that work smartcard.
Maybe I should ditch some of 'em.
he screamed on the radio perhaps hoping for an Apache Gunship to turn up
Genuine LOL
Does anyone else check their pockets before leaving a shop just incase you have accidentally stolen something? Don't know why I started to do this, but it was a very long time ago, I do it everytime and I have not found anything yet!
Security guard at IKEA asked to check my shopping against the receipt. I politely declined, at which point he refused to let me leave.
Explained to general manager that I would be delighted to show the receipt to the police if he chose to call them and waste their time, otherwise I would call them myself and report an unlawful arrest.
Allowed to leave quite promptly after that. In general if an alarm goes off when I leave a shop and it's not a tag that I could be accused of stealing, I ignore any request by security to stop for a bag search. Never been followed out of the store.
If I was physically detained in any way I'd call the police myself and then use a no-win-no-fee solicitor to claim compensation from the store.
Cool story bro.
Flaperon doesn't shop at Costco then.
When plagiarising someone else's work, it's a good idea to fact check and correct the typo in the original; otherwise both the error and the plagiarism stick out like a sore thumb.
If I was physically detained in any way I’d call the police myself and then use a no-win-no-fee solicitor to claim compensation from the store.
🙄🙄🙄
You know if you did that the police would bollock "you" for wasting their time.
And it wouldn't be a false citizens arrest because by not letting them look in your bag and matching the contents to a receipt you've given them reasonable grounds.
Besides the point. The shop has no legal right to search my stuff.
“The security guard can make a citizens arrest if he/she have reasonable grounds to believe you’ve commited a crime.”
Nope.
“The security guard can make a citizens arrest if he/she have reasonable grounds to believe you’ve commited a crime.”
Nope.
Which doesn't sit with this quote from a link on the first page.
Under s 24A of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, a security guard can make a citizen’s arrest for most indictable offences (including either way offences) if:
someone is in the act of committing an offence, or who the security guard has reasonable grounds for suspecting them to be in the act of committing an offence; oran offence has been committed and the person the security guard wants to arrest is guilty of that offence or who they have reasonable grounds for suspecting they are guilty of it.
And after making a citizens arrest a security guard can detain you untill the police arrive. It's all in the link on page one. I wasn't aware of these rules, that's why I took the time to read the link.
Yikes English law is different to Scottish! They let citizens arrest on suspicion?
Yikes English law is different to Scottish! They let citizens arrest on suspicion?
Stay North, stay safe 😁😁
Besides the point. The shop has no legal right to search my stuff.
Correct. But they can ask you to allow them to search it. And if you are already suspected of theft (by for example the security buzzer going off) and you refuse to show the Security Guard your receipt or allow him to search your bag voluntarily, then that gives them reasonable grounds to detain you as per the previous link.
Good luck with calling the police on that.
The definition of reasonable in the circumstances becomes an issue.
Back then to SCONE, although I don't find it unreasonable with security tagging being used for high value goods that a tag going off is in itself a fairly reasonable cause to be able to ask someone to be allowed to check their bag / produce a receipt for the goods inside.
How would you define reasonable?
All the people who stop, look in their bag and look around probably are not stealing.
Yeah. If I was a dodgy type I would just walk out at the same time as someone else and not stop.
Last time I had an alarm go off (picked up a parcel from the postoffice from amazon which for some reason was alarmed) decided might as well be kind and wait. Security guard was hence very polite and ticking the boxes.
Admittedly his first question came across quite pissed off but that was aimed at one of the neighbouring shops. Apparently they didnt bother turning on the alarms or the pads to disable the tags giving everyone else false alarms.
I don't think it's entirely relevant what people on Singletrack think is reasonable. What's more important is what the Lords of Appeal and the justices of the ECHR think is reasonable.
In this situation the courts have repeatedly said that the suspicion must be based on "facts or information which would satisfy an objective observer that ... committed the offence". Refusal to allow a search does not, by itself, pass that test because it offers no evidence of a crime. A bulging bag might.
My textbooks are in the loft, so you can't have citations.
<p>RE: ASDA black ops, reminded me of this gem:</p><p> http://lonelymachines.org/mall-ninjas/ </p>
“facts or information which would satisfy an objective observer that … committed the offence”
IANAL so will bow to your greater knowledge but as a layman in the street, setting the alarms off and then refusing to allow your bag to be checked for tags / producing a receipt for the goods, if that doesn't then I'm very surprised.
Also what of the situation where eg: security tags are used as the first line of defence, and once they go off then SD's can go back and check CCTV and get the 'proof' of someone putting stuff in their coat?
I wouldn't think that refusal to allow a search can be regarded as grounds for suspicion (if some random asked to look in my bags my instinct would be to tell them to **** off), but setting off an alarm might be. Note also that the law is different in civilised parts of the UK (ie Scotland) where an offence must be being committed - it's not enough to reasonably suspect, so if the customer turns out to be innocent, the security guard is committing an offence in detaining them irrespective of their beliefs.
Just went back over prior posts, and also had another thought.....
A bulging bag might
- give rise to the suspicion that you'd just bought and paid for a load of shopping, as I assume 99+% of people do.
If refusal to produce a receipt / allow someone to check your bag for tagged items isn't grounds for suspicion IDK that a bulging sack (fnarr!) is more grounds.
That said, I just bought a pint of milk for the work kitchen from the local supermarket, paid at the self-service with contactless, and the till gave me the option 'do you want a receipt' to which i thought no, I'm hardly going to want a refund on it, I want a cup of tea. Now, a pint of semi-skimmed is hardly the work of a criminal mastermind but I walked past the guard with a pint of milk in my hand and no means of proof. If the bar for reasonable grounds is as high as some learned friends say it is, it would be very easy to overcome.
'Excuse me, can i look in your bag'
'Yes'
'Have you got a receipt for these goods?'
'No, I pressed the "I don't want one" option'
- do they then have any grounds to 'reasonably' suspect you as your situation is entirely explainable?
I wonder if I can get the weekly shop past them in this way 😉
On that last point, it's complicated. The Supreme Court does a reasonable job of explaining, and overturning much of the previous law, in Stanley V Benning here:
http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/1998/1206.html
In essence, if you are shoplifting you need to stop the theft and then there may or may not be grounds for an arrest depending on how the criminal trial goes. If you aren't shoplifting then there's no grounds to start with. All of which is mostly academic, you're still going to get the ride in a police car (and the police arrest will be lawful) and will have to argue the "any person" arrest/assault question in the civil courts later. So, as always, the don't be a dick rule applies.
Just in case anyone gets the wrong idea, I'm not a lawyer either - I just read a lot.