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Nothing to do with me, I don't have a dog in this race. I just wondered what the STW Collective thought. (Plus I thought some might appreciate the story.) This was recently posted in a FB group I'm a member of:
Is my payback excessive?
A few years back while working in London, my lunch at work kept going missing from the fridge. I go to alot of effort with my lunch and when my steak tiger baguette went missing I decided enough was enough.
So, I left uncooked chicken in the garden all weekend. Then smeared it all over my slow cooked ham and pickle sandwiches, then off to work I go.
My salmonella surprise went in the fridge. Lunchtime quickly rolled around and off I skip to the fridge in the hope that the bastard sandwich thief has taken them. Sure enough, its gone.
Fast forward 24hrs. "fat Luke" in sales calls in sick, then is subsequently off work the whole week with horrendous food poisoning, including a 24hr stint in hospital.
Nobody's lunch has gone missing since and Fat Luke wasn't so fat anymore.
What would your reaction be to a lunch thief???
One of the responders has replied saying that he's committed a criminal offence in deliberately poisoning someone, the OP is arguing that it's nothing of the sort as "Fat Luke" poisoned himself.
Who's right?
Premeditiation would suggest that it is a crime.
If I left poisoned bait out for an animal, would the animal be to blame? Of course not. It's a criminal offence.
Two crimes.
Assault by the sandwich maker and theft by Fat Luke.
One crime doesn't cancel out the other. Hanging's too good for both of them.
It was left as a trap, and clearly bait.
If they had added some ridiculously spicy sauce to the sandwich, they could claim that they intended to eat it. But essentially making it poisonous, is not something they were willing to eat.
Yes fat Luke shouldn't have eaten it, but unfortunately that's not the point here.
Arguing over the rights and wrongs of things people claim to have done but haven't seems a bit odd.
I resorted to green food dye in my milk in halls of residence as a student which worked well in preventing it going missing. Then I took the nuclear option and went vegan, no one nicked your vegan food back in the mid eighties.
CDC estimates that each year roughly 1 in 6 Americans (or 48 million people) gets sick, 128,000 are hospitalized, and 3,000 die of foodborne diseases.
If he'd died I reckon a manslaughter charge wouldn't have been out of the question.
Seems it’s not a crime..
It was enough of a crime that the CPS felt able to go to court with it?
Humans know right from wrong and stealing is wrong. The food thief got their "just desserts" in this case. No sympathy at all.
The argument would be completely different if the poisoned food had been left in a supermarket shelf for someone to buy.
That'd be jail time.
Same intent. Only difference is the location of the fridge.
I skip to the fridge in the hope that the bastard sandwich thief has taken them.
That right there is the problem. If he could argue that he had intended to eat the sandwich himself, he might be OK, but I doubt it.
I'm not saying I disagree with what he's done, mind...
Sounds decidedly illegal. Still funny though!
Weight challenged Luke never stole anyone’s lunch again. Job done !
Don’t
Steal
Food
Tough shit (or not.....)
Very very excessive. That had the potential to kill Luke.
Luke is a sandwich stealing douche, but actually murdering him is a little extreme.
There is an intent to harm, which I think would be illegal. At the very least, it's negligent.
Fat Luke deserved his food poisoning though. Dirty lunch thief.
I can't see anywhere in that linked bbc story where it implies that it's not a crime. It is.
Having had a week's worth of salmonella poisoning, given the choice, i'd have rather had a damn good kicking instead.
Food poisoning is no joke. 21 people died from food poisoning in my town in 1996. Many others ( a few of whom I know ) were seriously ill.
Seems it’s not a crime..
Because one person was found not guilty of a crime, it’s no longer a crime ?
Seems an odd assumption to make.
Arguing over the rights and wrongs of things people claim to have done but haven’t seems a bit odd.
Agree.
I get annoyed enough if someone nicks my [i]place[/i] in the fridge (well, not [i]my[/i] place, but the place where I put my lunch), so I think the punishment's quite acceptable, if it's real, which it's not. Probably.
OK, so Luke could have died but that seems fair enough if he's been stealing food from a fridge, right?
The argument would be completely different if the poisoned food had been left in a supermarket shelf for someone to buy.
That’d be jail time.
Same intent. Only difference is the location of the fridge
It's a bit different. Food on supermarket shelves is offered for sale but when I stick something in the shared fridge I don't expect anyone else to help themselves to it. What this guy has done is wrong and if I did something like that I wouldn't tell anyone about it.
It’s a bit different.
It isn't.
It's all about the deliberate and premeditated intent to cause harm which, in this case, seems crystal clear.
Not sure I'd go as far as intentionally putting Salmonella in a fridge, that could have infected everything else in there, potentially.
At uni someone kept nicking our beer and wine from the fridge. So went for a slash and half filled a wine bottle, and left it on top of the fridge (easier to re-cork than recap a beer bottle). Everyone in the apartment knew exactly what was in it. Naturally that bottle vanished the very next day, just like all the rest.
The cleaner was not a happy bunny the next time she had to clean our kitchen.
Nothing else went missing after that 😉
Would raw chicken, as described, be guarantee'd to be salmonella riddled? Could the sandwich maker argue he hoped it would just taste rank?
(this presents me with an excellent opportunity to regale you with a story of a mate who, despite being offered the use of a cool box, left a chicken, bacon and mayo wrap in hs car over a very hot and sunny August bank hol 2017 race weekend at torq in your sleep, before eating it on the sunday night. he was up all night retching, then, the morning after, was sick out of his car window, 30 mins into a 5 hour journey home to Leeds. Shortly after shitting himself. Didn't get salmonella though.)
I'd say it's going a bit far. The consequences could've been far worse. A bit of very hot sauce would be better imo.
Slight tangent but it reminds of this classic: A Sheik, with a well-stocked harem, is setting out on a journey across the desert.
Unbeknownst to him, all is not well in the harem. His wife and one of his mistresses are independently plotting his demise. The wife poisons the water in his canteen, while the mistress punctures the canteen so that the water slowly leaks out.
The Sheik sets out on the journey. After a few miles he feels parched. He unscrews the cap on his canteen and finds, much to his displeasure, that it is empty. He soon dies of dehydration.
Question: who caused the Sheik's death, the wife or the mistress?
so removing the guard from a machine and sticking your hand in means that the company is liable for the employee doing that.
I suggest its lukes problem. while its not nice it serves him right doesnt it?
so Luke could have died
What if he'd stolen a normal sandwich, but was allergic to one of the ingredients? He could've died then too.
I’ll take “things that never happened” for 500, please Alex
If I was in charge of the country one of the things I would introduce would be the 'well you shouldn't have been there' defense. This would apply in cases where people murder burglars or trespassers get hurt but a variation on it would be fine in the case of the sandwich maker.
.
I would say morally fine, legally dubious, but this applies to a lot of things, the law is not a guide to morality (speaking as someone who has been in front of the beak for various animal rights actions...)
f I was in charge of the country one of the things I would introduce would be the ‘well you shouldn’t have been there’ defense.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volenti_non_fit_injuria#English_law
...which in this instance would probably only apply if Fat Luke had a reasonable expectation that the fridge would contain poisoned sandwiches.
Stealing the sandwich was Fat Luke assuming the risk of being caught, not being poisoned.
Humans know right from wrong and stealing is wrong. The food thief got their “just desserts” in this case. No sympathy at all.
This. Serial rule#1 breaker learns not to break rule#1 the hard way is how I read it.
Can't say I've got any sympathy for "Fat Luke", although TBH my main reaction to the story is closer to this one:
I’ll take “things that never happened” for 500, please Alex
I would introduce would be the ‘well you shouldn’t have been there’ defense.
How about traps on cheeky trails?
Hoping the chicken would go manky was a bit risky if you ask me, I mean it could have failed to produce anything sufficiently toxic and Luke would have just got away with it again. Polonium, that's the way to go.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volenti_non_fit_injuria#English_law
…which in this instance would probably only apply if Fat Luke had a reasonable expectation that the fridge would contain poisoned sandwiches.
Stealing the sandwich was Fat Luke assuming the risk of being caught, not being poisoned.
So if the sandwich had a post-it on top, reading "Do not eat, unsafe". Then it becomes Fat Lukes problem?
Assuming he ate it, choosing to ignore the note, thinking it was a bluff.
It IS a crime, because he plotted to harm.
Serves the food thief right though. No sympathy; don’t nick other people’s food.
Proving beyond all reasonable doubt that a crime had been committed would be tough however (Facebook mia culpa aside, that is). If I were on the jury I wouldn’t convict. Natural justice tops U.K. law. See ‘jury nullification’.
It's a crime against the person. You can't poison someone legally in the UK. Whether it can be proven is a different matter.
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Vict/24-25/100/contents
23. Maliciously administering poison, &c. so as to endanger life or inflict grievous bodily harm.
24. Maliciously administering poison, &c. with intent to injure, aggrieve, or annoy any other person.
It's also bloody reckless. How do you know the thief isn't immunocompromised? Or there is wider contamination of the fridge. And it's also a notifable disease in the UK, so an environmental inspection would be required of the site.
I had scromboid posioning from tuna at a nice pub on a hot suny day. Huge histamine dose. Fortunately it was eaten by a fit young(ish) cyclist rather than a frail old man, who may have died from the subsequent reaction (flushing, extreme heart rate...).
Two crimes
Three.
"I go to alot of effort"
Food poisoning is no joke. 21 people died from food poisoning in my town in 1996. Many others ( a few of whom I know ) were seriously ill.
They shouldn't have all stolen sandwiches then.
How do you know the thief isn’t immunocompromised?
If an immunocompromised person is stealing others peoples food then a Darwin Award isn't far off for him
If not a load of bullshit (most likely), it's the offence of administering a noxious substance with intent to cause bodily harm.
franksinatra - not a joking matter. Perchy is being serious (for once).
21 people did really die http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/154107.stm
World's worst E. Coli outbreak.
They shouldn’t have all stolen sandwiches then.
Chortle chortle!
A mate of mine was a bugger when he worked in the prison service. He once gave another officer a Blue Riband biscuit to have with a cuppa. Mark says, 'not like you to give stuff away Sam but thanks very much', Sam says, 'oh it's not mine, I found it in the cupboard'. (He almost wrecked a vending machine while on nights, getting a bag of crisps out that was teetering on the edge, he won.)
And what if it had been picolax liberally sprinkled?