What is hacking you off today?

[THE SEVENTIES NORTH BANK]

Low-value shoplifting, defined as theft from a shop of goods worth £200 or less, is considered a "summary-only" offence for the purposes of deciding the trial venue. This means it can be tried in the Magistrates' Court rather than the Crown Court1. However, it remains an "indictable" offence for other purposes, including those outlined in the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (which permits citizens’ arrests at section 24A, and warrantless searches at sections 18 and 32)

Ed Smyth of The Law Society Gazette, said this of that same act you have quoted. I think it's best to agree to disagree on this one and leave it at that Supershrimper. I'm sure we can both find articles saying do the Citizens arrest, and not do the citizens arrest. So I can certainly see your side. The other thing a lot say before making the citizens arrest, is call the police first, Lol. By the time the police dispatcher in another County asks you lots of questions about you, the incident, and your location, the offence is over and the shoplifter is well gone.

Ed Smyth.
Also of relevance here – perhaps more so – is section 24A of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, which was introduced on 1 January 2006. This section explicitly permits a person (not necessarily a 'citizen') who is not a police officer to arrest another person who is in the act of committing an 'indictable' criminal offence, a person who is guilty of such an offence, or someone who the bystander has reasonable grounds for suspecting to be committing or to have committed an indictable offence.

The potential hero must therefore understand which offences fall into the 'indictable' category, those offences that may be tried at the Crown Court. Some are obvious: rape, murder, grievous bodily harm, and illegal possession of a firearm. But some ostensibly 'serious' offences fall into the 'summary only' category, meaning they can only be dealt with at the magistrates’ court and in respect of which the citizen is not permitted to arrest. Such summary offences include criminal damage (other than arson) up to a value of £5,000, common assault and threatening and disorderly behaviour.

The problem is becoming clear: there can be few members of the general public who would be able to make the properly informed assessment, in the heat of the moment, of whether the potential criminal offence they suspect they are witnessing falls into the correct category to trigger lawful powers of arrest under section 24A. Even police officers can and do misclassify suspected offences.

 

[Mad Cyril]

So I was in the Sainsbury's Local, opposite the Tesco petrol station Southchurch Road today, when a young lady walks in and blatantly starts stuffing refrigerated food into obviously made for purpose, massive pouches inside her huge coat that swamped her. She took about 10 items, and a member of staff said 'That's enough now'', but she told him to f-off, and took a few more bits. It was all done within about a minute. Then calmly walked out. The member of staff said to another shopper watching, there's nothing he can do, the amount was too small for the police. He said her boyfriend came in earlier to do the same thing.

I saw a chap shoplifting in the CoOp on Benfleet high street.

He was wearing old school 70's style roller boots presumably for a quick getaway.

 

[Mad Cyril]

I was in Pets At Home in Pitsea at the weekend to purchase some dog harnesses.

The Julius K9 harnesses are kept under lock and key otherwise they get shoplifted.