Heres my question,

As bar staff, if you fail and test purchase or mystery shopper for under age sale of alcohol can you be given a court conviction.

I know there is a personal £90 fine and my place of work imposes an instant dismissal from work, but is that as far as it goes?

I know the manager can receive a large ££££ fine and possible prison time but as a member of staff will the fine and sack be it?

Did you fancy her?

would that not be entrapment?

Yes it us an offence for the person selling and the licence

but will the seller get a court conviction?

I thought the big money fine rested with the person actually making the sale.

I also thought it was the person making the sale who was liable for the fine.

Edit: And no, it’s (very probably) not entrapment. IIRC “entrapment” is where you’re encouraged to do something that you wouldn’t otherwise do. An underage person walking into a shop and trying to buy booze isn’t an unusual situation for a shop worker to face, so IDing and refusing service if necessary should be the response to it. You’d struggle to say “I sold stuff to the underage tester but I wouldn’t have sold anything to any other underage people”.

Two possible offences here:

SALE OF ALCOHOL TO CHILDREN
A person commits an offence if he sells alcohol to an individual under 18.

and

ALLOWING THE SALE OF ALCOHOL TO CHILDREN
A person who works at premises in a capacity that authorises them to prevent the sale of alcohol to an individual under 18 commits an offence if they knowingly allow the sale of alcohol to take place.

They are both criminal convictions.

The maximum fine for both offence is the same (£5K).

Being caught out on a test purchase doesn’t always end up with people being prosecuted. The authorities might suggest that a warning be issued or that the shop completes staff training so it doesn’t happen again.

On the spot issue of fine for the individual (was £80, but might be £90 now). Beyond that essentially what amplebrew says, it’s at the discretion of the licencing authority / Police / Trading Standards based on the premises previous record and what current measures the company / premises has set up for staff training and enforcing policy and what they intend to do to improve, following failure of a test purchase.
The max fine is £5k to the ?? licence holder? (might be the business owner/company). I suppose the max penalty is removal of the licence either temporarily or permanently. Max penalty to the individual is gross misconduct ie dismissal (most companies have this policy).

I know there is a personal £90 fine and my place of work imposes an instant dismissal from work, but is that as far as it goes?

Yes for the individual, but not for the company and/or license holder.

I don’t think there is any prison time involved for anyone. Certainly there is no way your manager would go to prison for something you did, that’s just someone BSing you.

Local morisons a cashier got a fine for selling to underage, also the tills are programed for the cashier to ask for proof of id from customers and member of staff must click the dob of the buyer or click yes they asked and got a positive reply, different in different shops.

specialdrifter, are you concerned about accepting a bar job (and possible consequences) or have you already been caught out???

would that not be entrapment?

Would it matter under English law?

would it matter under English law ?

Why wouldn’t it ?

http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKHL/2001/53.html

If the police conduct preceding the commission of the offence was no more than might have been expected by others in the circumstances this would not constitute entrapment.

well, consider me edumacated on English law. I was entirely ignorant of everything in paras 11-16 of that judgment. I do apologise.