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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.