“L’Angleterre est une nation de boutiquiers.” so said an angry man from Corsica once. But Napoleon, when describing us as a “Nation of Shopkeepers”, might have just misdescribed us a little according to a recent report.
The report from the British Retail Consortium, suggested that we are in fact a nation of shoplifters.
Well, looking at the full statistics, to describe us as a nation of shoplifters is a bit strong and in fact the report didn’t describe us as such at all, but involve the press and you have headlines suggesting that one in five of us is not averse to leaving a shop without paying for everything.
The particular reason cited for this is the rise of the self service till. “Unexpected item in bagging area”, seems to translate as “Please pick me up and wander out without paying for me”, for a surprising number of people.
The statistics suggest that this is amounting to a staggering £1700,000,000.00 a year.
If it is one in five of us who are doing that, it means that there are at least two of them in my road and I can’t work out who, as everyone seems very nice to me.
From the legal perspective, the fine minds in our Criminal Department have suggested that saying you couldn’t get the scanner to work, is unlikely to amount to a very strong legal defence if the store security spot you with an undisclosed box of fondant fancies nestling in the bottom of your shopping bag. If the stats are to be believed however, that doesn’t seem to put of those people who take the self service line at the supermarket a bit too literally.
Will this mean an increased number of store securtiy standing by the tills, or even more incognito undercover supermarket sleuths, or just an annoying increase in shopping bills for the 80% of us in the majority?
We wait to see what happens.
Adrian Witt
Waldrons Solicitors Blog 