bear with..
imagine you see a fiver in the street.. you look around pick it up put it in your pocket.. have you stolen it /been dishonest?
imagine your at a self service checkout in a supermarket and you see a fiver on the floor.. you look around, pop it in your wallet..have you stolen it /been dishonest?
imagine you work in supermarket a and while shopping in supermarket b you find a fiver on the floor at a checkout.. look around pop it in your pocket.. have you stolen it/ been dishonest?
imagine you work at supermarket a and on your day off you pop into supermarket a for a spot of shopping and there on the floor is a fiver.. you look around and pop it in your pocket.. your seen to do it by a security guard..have you stolen it? been dishonest? commmited an act of gross misconduct? would you expect to be dismissed? or suspended without pay for a week or so?

What does the T&C’s of your/somebodies employment contract say?
There will be expectations of behaviour when you are in the workplace even if you are not working there. For instance if you were working I’d expect that you are expected hand in the cash. As an employee off shift in the workplace you should uphold the same standards.

Pick it up and pop it into the local charity collection box.

No dilemma, no drama, no question.

It’s all about the giving.

Google ‘theft by finding’.

In retail, anything that can be construed as theft is taken very seriously. As in instant dismissal seriously. Finding cash and making zero effort to get it back to its owner is theft by finding, and in a store there is a reasonable chance of getting it back to it’s owner, particularly given the level of CCTV. There’s also the potential impact for the person who lost the cash – if they’re hard up then a fiver could be very important to them putting food on the table, so morally it’s tight to just pocket it.

I once found cash left in an ATM at a store and passed it on to customer services, and it was reunited with its owner. I also once left cash in an ATM in the office and the person who found it went out of their way to get it back to me.

You have to take reasonable steps to return it to the owner, even though the owner could probably not identify a random £5 as theirs

The proper place is the police station. Hand the £5 in, wait a month and you’ll probably get it back

Work might have their own procedure and on or off duty you may be expected to conform

Back when I was a student, I worked in a bowling alley for a while. Policy there was that staff were not allowed to have money on them at all whilst working, irrespective of where it’d come from. Guilty until proven innocent, if you will. I wouldn’t be totally shocked if said supermarket operated a similar policy.

I had an application from someone who worked in a shop where three people had access to the cash in the safe on a particular day.

Money was stolen, no one owned up (surprise!) and company couldn’t prove who had done it.

All three were sacked.

Seems like retailers don;t need a lot of provocation to get rid of staff who *may* have shown themselves to be ‘the wrong sort of person’.

Not sure. Would it make any difference if you found a fiver on the floor of an plane and that plane was on a conveyor belt?

OP, answering your questions in order.

Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Probably.
Probably.
Probably.

Basically all of your examples are dishonest, and they are all theft.
Most people would probably do the same, but that doesn’t change much.

I once dropped 100€ note in Aldi. Only realised when I got to the till. Asked the half a dozen people in the store. No one owned up.

Found €20 on the cash machine I was about to use in Dublin airport a week or so ago. Handed it in to Airport Police, might have been really important to somebody.

In the last couple of months I have found a £20 note on a country lane twice. No one around either time, quite a distance to a house. The first went in a Macmillan charity pot, the second (I thought someone up there was trying to tell me something!) paid for a nice couple of pints and a spot of lunch.

In a supermarket – I’d hand it in to customer services.

In a supermarket where I worked, even if I wasn’t on duty – too right I’d hand it in. Not because it would be the right thing to do but because the consequential scenario you described was highly likely.

You find alot of fivers.. Do you walk round looking at the floor?

i found 50 quid in 5ers folded up next to my land rover in a puddle in a tesco carpark at xmas.

it wasnt my 50 quid.

no one around.

so i handed it in to customer services who in turn handed it to the police.

50 quid is 50 quid and i didnt need 50 quid for my Xmas but the owner of the 50 quid probably needed it….. you dont tend to get 50 quid in 5s from the cash machine so someones saved that up over time….

They never claimed it and the police called me to say it was mine. it was about 50 miles from my house so told them to stick it in the charity box.

Personally if I worked there I would hand it in just to be sure.

Legally ,as it is your day off, I would be very keen to read the T & C of the contract and the exact policy wording on this.
It had better be very clear what they expect from you

It will be interesting as to what they can do to you as it was your own time but their premises.

tbh I’d expect you to pick it up and call another member of staff immediately to draw attention to it – and then hand it directly to your Supervisor/Manager.

As above, it’s technically theft.

If hauled up for it by a retailer employer, I would expect there to be a good chance of getting kicked out, so would be grovelling my arse off rather than trying to justify or excuse it in any way.

The fact it was not during working hours/while wearing uniform might help a bit, but it depends whether the store manager has any discretion in cases where theft is involved.

imagine you work at supermarket a and on your day off you pop into supermarket a for a spot of shopping and there on the floor is a fiver.. you look around and pop it in your pocket.. your seen to do it by a security guard..have you stolen it? been dishonest? commmited an act of gross misconduct? would you expect to be dismissed? or suspended without pay for a week or so?

Is this what happened?
Who’s to say the fiver wasn’t your in the first place? Or was the guard watching it, waiting to see who picked it up?

As above, it’s technically theft.

Where is the dishonesty (an essential element of the offence of theft)?

What reasonable steps could have been taken to ascertain the owner of the money!

What was the men’s rea of the shop worker? Did they look around to check nobody was looking, or look around to see who might have dropped it, and on not being able to tell, decide that ‘finders keepers’?

One answer would amount to evidence of an offence, the other disprove it.

Where is the dishonesty (an essential element of the offence of theft)?

The dishonesty is, as your second comment suggests, the lack of reasonable steps taken to reunite it with its owner.

What reasonable steps could have been taken to ascertain the owner of the money!

Err, handing it into customer services in case the owner returned to try to find it?

Sure, it’s only a fiver, but that might be a sufficient loss to a pensioner for them to retrace their steps to try to reclaim it, especially if they’ve only just got to the till and found they couldn’t pay for their shopping.

Google ‘Theft by Finding’.

Yes, I know about theft by finding

The fact remains that on the facts presented you cannot decide whether an offence has been committed without asking the state of mind of the employee – the correct answer clears them entirely.

If it went to court, perhaps, but I’m guessing that a retail worker, probably on a disadvantageously-termed contract, doesn’t have the luxury of ‘innocent until proven etc’. They could probably just heave him out if they felt like it.

Circumstances are odd though. The guard, knowing the object on the floor is a fiver, doesn’t pick it up and deal with it, but watches someone else do it, waits for them to leave the store? (to establish intention not to hand it in?) and then dobs them in to management.

Unless he stopped him on the way out, says ‘what about that fiver then?’, and the worker says ‘it’s mine, innit? Finders keepers…’

Well, I would be very dubious about disciplinary action – I would suggest that OP/employee involved points out that the shop would have no rights at all to discipline the employee or accuse them of gross misconduct as the shop itself had no rights to the money, any (even possible) act of theft would be against persons unknown, as there’s extensive case law that the owner of the building on which lost property is found has no interest in it. (Bridges v hawkesworth 1851)

Without that connection, the employee could even comment that since the shop had no right in law, he intended to hand it in at the police station on his way home… (Would probably be different if he found it while in the course of his duties as an employee though)

I’ve found nice stuff in the street – watch, smartfone etc & handed it in to police. Last week we were at a cashpoint & the lady in front walked off leaving at least 100e in cash in the machine, we chased after her & gave it to her.

You can tell how decent a person is by how they react when they find something that’s not theirs, if they keep it they are pretty dishonest. My mother always old me it brings bad luck too.

The fact remains that on the facts presented you cannot decide whether an offence has been committed without asking the state of mind of the employee

Judging by the list of “justification” scenarios in the OP, I’d reckon the person involved more than likely didn’t see an issue with keeping the money that they found, and said as much when asked.

I would suggest that OP/employee involved points out that the shop would have no rights at all to discipline the employee or accuse them of gross misconduct as the shop itself had no rights to the money, any (even possible) act of theft would be against persons unknown, as there’s extensive case law that the owner of the building on which lost property is found has no interest in it.

Hmmm, I’m not sure about that. The shop has no rights to a customer’s money, but if I was caught pickpocketing in the same store that I worked in then I’d expect to be in serious trouble. Likewise, if I start poking customers in the eye, just because I haven’t poked the store manager in the eye doesn’t mean they can’t sack me.

edit: and as mentioned above, I don’t think the fact that there hasn’t been a prosecution actually matters. If the store wants rid of the employee because they think they’re stealing then they’ll do it.

If I was in the OP’s hypothetical situation described at the top I’d have just handed it in to customer services/security. I’d do that even if I didn’t work there.

Well, I would be very dubious about disciplinary action – I would suggest that OP/employee involved points out that the shop would have no rights at all to discipline the employee or accuse them of gross misconduct as the shop itself had no rights to the money, any (even possible) act of theft would be against persons unknown, as there’s extensive case law that the owner of the building on which lost property is found has no interest in it. (Bridges v hawkesworth 1851)

If a shop worker came into the store on his day off and picked the pocket of a shopper, you couldn’t really apply the same scenario, could you? It’s not about whether the store has an interest in the money, it’s just about possible criminal behaviour of an employee while on the premises.

at a cashpoint & the lady in front walked off leaving at least 100e in cash in the machine, we chased after her & gave it to her.

that’s nothing like the same as finding it on the floor in a shop – you know who the owner is. (Same happened to me a little while back – I think the old fella was deaf)

op.. returning to add meat.. it wasnt me wasnt even a friend but somebody who knew i used to give oversight to discplinary action in the workplace, related the incident after the event.

the employee actually went to his place of work to shop, arriving at the self serve checkout found a fiver, popped it in his pocket. security reported him to store management.
employee was initially suspended with pay pending investigation and then suspended for a week without pay as punishment ( a weeks salary in his case was circa 900 quid)
researching it via stw and other more appropriate channels revealed some interesting stuff..

something based on what we call finders keepers losers weepers does have some historical value but not on this subject.
in law you should make reasonable efforts to locate the owner.. what they may be isnt described anywhere, and as a single fiver is literally common currency identifying its rightful owner could be considered impossible its owner would have to prove reasonably that the specific fiver was theirs.

was, what was effectively, a 900 quid fine a balanced punishment?

a weeks salary in his case was circa 900 quid)

As the store manager (presumably from the £47k salary) he really should have known better.

A large company would more than likely have a policy in place for lost property, in which case that’s what he would be in breach of, so the legal in and outs of finding/theft etc would be pretty much irrelevant.

Think about how you’d feel if you were hard up,lost some cash and someone made the effort to get it back to you…
Be the change you want to see in the world…

Wwaswas thats disgusting. If that was me I’d be taking legal advice. How can you sack two innocent people?

Three men, ones stabbed a woman to death. No evidence found. Do you jail all three? Or without evidence let them go?

£900 a week for working in a supermarket?

At the self-service checkouts, they usually print out the previous receipt, making it dead easy for someone to prove it was theirs.

No case for ‘could have been anyone’s’ justification here.

Matt

So it was a fiver in the change slot? That’s bad if so…

Bloke’s lucky to still have a job, and should be thankful to be only £900 lighter.

Thinking about it, I wonder if the best course of action (assuming you don’t work there) would be to go to the customer services and say “I’ve found some money, here’s my number, if someone can tell me where they lost it and how much then I’ll drop it off.” Then you’re not doing the right thing just for someone else to go “ooh, free money.”

You can tell how decent a person is by how they react when they find something that’s not theirs, if they keep it they are pretty dishonest.

A couple of months back, I was using one of those infernal “unexpected item in bagging area” self-service tills in a local supermarket. Opted to take out £20 cashback, and in the four seconds it took to type my PIN and receive a receipt I managed to forget.

Got as far as the exit gate next to the tills (so ten yards or so tops), realised and turned back. The next customers were using the till, I looked at the money slot and it was empty.

Looked at the floor, at the couple using the till, at the slot again, no sign, no reaction from them. So I said, “erm, excuse me, but was there some money in the slot…?” The guy looked daggers at me for a few seconds, then, without saying a single word, fished in his pocket and returned my money.

People.

If that was me I’d be taking legal advice. How can you sack two innocent people?

If, as an employer you have reasonable grounds to suspect all 3, then you can sack all 3 (breach of trust?). It only has to be ‘reasonable’, not proved beyond reasonable doubt.

Three men, ones stabbed a woman to death. No evidence found. Do you jail all three? Or without evidence let them go?

I assume there’s evidence which proved beyond reasonable doubt that one of the 3 did the stabbing, but not sufficient to identify which one?

All 3 can be jailed under ‘joint enterprise’ AFAIK.

The person in the OP was very lucky to keep his job IMHO.

I had the same situation,
coming up to Christmas, found a tenner on the floor at the checkout, asked everyone in the queue, asked both the checkout I was at and the one next to it.

Everyone shook their heads and said, no not mine ?

Girl at the checkout said “looks like its your lucky day”
I disagreed and asked where Customer services was, which shocked her as “Nobody hands in money”…..

I explained to her that I had been in the situation where I could not afford to lose £10 and I`d have retraced my steps for the entire day if needed, in the hope I might find it.

If this £10 belonged to someone in the same boat, I wanted them to be able to find it.

Customer services were staggered, but they took it, and my details and said if it wasn’t claimed in a month it was mine anyway.

I never heard anything so I hope the person came looking for it and found it.
My Ex always reckoned someone in customer services claimed it though….
I prefer my ending 🙂

f, as an employer you have reasonable grounds to suspect all 3, then you can sack all 3 (breach of trust?). It only has to be ‘reasonable’, not proved beyond reasonable doubt

You mean balance of probabilities [ that is how tribunal decide] and the balance of probabilities is unlikely to suggest that all of them did it.
You still need to know which one did it so it cannot be reasonable by any standard
For example imagine some stock went missing form a shop. Can you sack all the staff? We know one of them did so why not? is there a number at which it is not “reasonable”
I would be amazed if that decision, as recounted, was legal

I assume there’s evidence which proved beyond reasonable doubt that one of the 3 did the stabbing, but not sufficient to identify which one?

All 3 can be jailed under ‘joint enterprise’ AFAIK.
They can because we changed the law but only if they all knew that one of them had a knife and went there with the intention to stab someone

In the theft I dont see how you will show joint enterprise/ show they all knew that one of them intended to rob the company.