Kidnapped by Asda for refusing to Show Receipt on Exit.

[ian valentine]

The details below form the main body of an e-mail i have sent to the CEO Andy Clarke of Asda following an incident yesterday. I would be interested to hear forum views, and apologies moderators if this is in the wrong section, please feel free to move it to the correct section.

 

Dear Mr Clarke, I have today been humiliated, embarrassed and had my good name and reputation publicly tarnished by the actions of your security staff and Asda colleagues at you store in Thurmaston, Leicester.

 

At 12-14pm I purchased and paid for £108.42 worth of goods at store terminal number 70728924. Upon leaving the store a middle aged man wearing a high visibility jacket stopped me and said can I see your receipt, he never identified himself as being an employee of your company or why he was asking me to produce a receipt for the goods I had purchased.

 

I refused to show him my receipt at which point he said that he could not let me go and that he would have to call security, he held onto the trolley containing my purchase preventing me from going to my car to load up, then called security on a two way radio that he produced from his pocket.

 

I explained to him that he had no right to prevent me from leaving and his reply was it is not my fault, I am just doing my job. When two security guards arrived a moment later they were deliberately trying to intimidate me by saying it was my fault that I was being prevented from leaving for not showing the receipt to the first colleague, and were forcefully insistent that if I did not show them my receipt then they would have to take me to the security room in the store.

 

I explained to them that they had no right to prevent me from leaving the store or to detain me without making a specific allegation against me, and that the refusal to show a receipt for my own goods was not in itself sufficient grounds to suspect that I was leaving the store without paying, and was not a reasonable or actionable reason for my subsequent detention in the security room.

 

This was all taking place in the main exit of the store in full view of all the entering and exiting customers on a busy Saturday lunchtime. The security guard stated "you are on private property we can do what we like as you don't have the same rights as when on public property", and proceeded to usher me and my trolley of goods into the security room past all the exiting customers.

 

At this point I told him to get the store manager and to call the police as I was being illegally detained and that I wished to pursue the matter further, if necessary through the courts to gain redress for the humiliation, embarrassment and the damage to my reputation as well as the illegal detention that I was now under.

 

I told him I had not committed any offence and he had no right to detain me to which his reply was "if you just showed us your receipt it would have saved all this buggering about". Whilst waiting in the security room for the arrival of the store manager and the police I was further embarrassed by the fact that the doors to the security room were left open with a security guard outside to prevent me from leaving, but it allowed passing customers to look in at me like some sort of caged criminal or a circus freak show.

 

Upon arrival of the duty manager to the security room I explained to her that she and her colleagues would be facing action from my legal representatives for my false detention. She said that as I was unwilling to show my receipt to them, when requested, that my detention would be longer as she would have to make the "necessary checks", I explained to her that as it had now got to the stage where Asda had detained me illegally then I was prepared to wait for the Police to arrive to bear witness to the situation so that I could make a formal complaint to them about the illegal conduct of the Asda employees.

 

I was then left on my own in the security room with the security guard standing outside.

 

After some time another Asda employee entered and identified himself as the People Service Manager, he explained that he had only just come on shift and that he needed to find out what had happened, so rather than detain me any longer he asked for my contact details which I gave him, he apologised for my detention and said he would contact me on my mobile telephone on Sunday once he had got to the bottom of what had happened with the employees in question. I re-iterated to him that I had been detained illegally now for more than an hour, had been humiliated in public, had my good name and reputation tarnished by the actions of Asda employees and that I would be instructing my solicitor to take legal action against Asda for my false detention if I did not receive suitable financial redress.

 

As I was about to leave the store two Police officers arrived and whilst the people service manager explained to them what he intended to do they asked that I tell them my side of what had happened, so I went back into the security room with them and explained what had happened.

 

The first officer then asked if I minded showing him my receipt for the purchased goods, and as he is an officer of the law I duly obliged, he confirmed that the receipt showed that I had purchased the goods and that there was no reason for being detained.

 

The people service manager then came back into the security room with a till copy of my receipt confirming exactly what I had said all along that the goods in the trolley were mine as I had paid for them in full. He apologised once more and re-iterated that he would contact me Sunday 17th February on my mobile telephone once he had time to resolve what had gone on with the staff in question.

 

The Police then lodged the incident as incident number 326, took my details and allowed me to leave. I do not know whether they have taken further action against your employees for their conduct in the way they handled the situation.

 

If I do not receive a reply from either the people service manager tomorrow or yourself by Wednesday next week then I will assume that you would prefer it to go to court proceedings and will instruct my solicitor accordingly. I await your reply.

 

So far nothing from the people service manager.

Edited February 17, 2013 by honeybee13
Spacing.

[i hate bailiffs]

Please edit post and put some spaces in

[honeybee13]

Please edit post and put some spaces in

 

I've done that.

 

HB

[citizenB]

I have put some spaces into your post.

 

I agree, it must have been very humiliating.

 

Have you sent the email already ? Please let us know what the outcome is.

[honeybee13]

CB, I think we crossed again on the edit!

 

I think this thread would be best placed in the forum for shoplifting allegations and cases, so I'll move it there and leave a short term redirect here.

 

HB

[i hate bailiffs]

i would say that Asda may of been able to handle things better and not take so long to address things

 

However had you shown the receipt you would of been on your way without any bother

sounds to me that the staff were doing there job

[renegadeimp]

Also, it wouldnt be kidnapping, but unlawful detention.

Edited February 17, 2013 by renegadeimp

[Consumer dude]

i would say that Asda may of been able to handle things better and not take so long to address things

 

However had you shown the receipt you would of been on your way without any bother

sounds to me that the staff were doing there job

 

Why should anyone have to prove there innocence while the general public were en mass to the event. I believe the individual was within his right to attempt to leave the store without hindrance..

[citizenB]

Why should anyone have to prove there innocence while the general public were en mass to the event. I believe the individual was within his right to attempt to leave the store without hindrance..

 

 

I agree.

 

Surely a quick look at the security tapes would have shown the OP paying for his purchase. Why was this particular person chosen for the spot check ??

[citizenB]

CB, I think we crossed again on the edit!

 

I think this thread would be best placed in the forum for shoplifting allegations and cases, so I'll move it there and leave a short term redirect here.

 

HB

 

I wondered why it was taking so long

[i hate bailiffs]

Why should anyone have to prove there innocence while the general public were en mass to the event. I believe the individual was within his right to attempt to leave the store without hindrance..

 

All that was asked for was a till receipt

by refusing is making the situation how it turned out

 

Why should Asda not ask to see a receipt

 

Could it of been a self service till they may of had reason to believe that items may of not been scanned properly

Providing proof in the way of a receipt would of been a painless, short, easy, resolution

 

showing a till receipt when exiting a shop is reasonable

[renegadeimp]

 

showing a till receipt when exiting a shop is reasonable

 

Forcibly detaining a person with no proof isnt.

[i hate bailiffs]

I refused to show him my receipt at which point he said that he could not let me go and that he would have to call security.

 

and showing the receipt would of been the way forwards

[lenny01]

Hello there, I've stumbled across your post and feel I have to comment. I am a Loss Prevention Manager and have worked in Loss Prevention for many years, and I also train new recruits as to their rights / powers / ways of working.

 

Firstly, may I ask some questions:

 

1) Were you told why you were being detained? (i.e. Did they tell you what they thought you had stolen/done wrong?)

2) Did they tell you that you were under arrest/being detained?

3) Did they caution you?

4) I'm guessing by your member name you are male, but can you confirm? (If you are female were there female staff members present?)

5) How long in total were you detained for?

6) Did they put their hands on your person (not your trolly) at any time?

 

IMO, this is a classic case of false arrest. It begs the question as to what they were doing all that time that you were in the holding room. I would be very surprised if the person that instigated the incident did not lose their job.

 

If you answer the questions above, I can give you a more detailed response and hopefully help you with a potential course of action, although the letter to the CEO is a good start.

 

Lenny.

[lenny01]

Whilst I agree the best way forward would have been to show the receipt, you have to remember, this was just a bloke in a high vis that approached the OP asking to see the receipt. Now any retailer has the right to ask to see a customers receipt (I have done so myself on many occasions), when a customer refuses there is pretty much nothing they can do without cast iron proof of wrongdoing, which they obviously did not have. The senior managers will be spitting feathers when they get wind of this.

 

The OP could actually request a copy of the CCTV footage of his transaction and the holding room if he wanted to.

[BazzaS]

showing a till receipt when exiting a shop is reasonable

 

Forcibly detaining a person with no proof isnt.

 

Precisely. If the store staff couldn't apply "SCONE" (the mnemonic often used by security staff to ensure they act lawfully!) fully, then they can ask to see a receipt, but the OP is under no obligation to do so.

 

If the store staff wanted to, why could they not check the record on the self-scan terminal : which would show what the customer had scanned, and / or reviewed the CCTV?

 

If the OP was detained against their wishes, in the absence of having committed an offence, then is that not false imprisonment?

 

OP : did you ask them if they were arresting you?. If they didn't arrest you, did you agree to return to the store? Did they touch your person?.

 

I MIGHT have chosen to show my receipt if it were me. It would depend on the approach the staff had taken towards me, and how much if a hurry I was in, but even if I had chosen to do so, it would be by my choice, not any obligation, and if I chose to decline : they would have no right to detain me unless they chose to arrest me with all the liability that would follow when they discovered it was an unlawful arrest +/- false imprisonment.

[lenny01]

If the OP was detained against their wishes, in the absence of having committed an offence, then is that not false imprisonment?

 

Correct. It's false imprisonment, not kidnapping.

[postggj]

Correct. It's false imprisonment, not kidnapping.

 

beg to differ

 

It is Unlawful Detention

[frank550]

The law is quite clear, a member of the public (i.e. anyone who isnt a Police Warrant holder) can only detain if they know an arrestable offence has been committed and that the person they are detaining they have reasonable suspicion to believe carried out that arrestable offence. In this case its a spot check and therefore unlawful to detain the person.

 

There may be a defence for Asda if they have large signs stating the policy clearly so that any reasonable person could read it and undestand it.

 

IMO they have clearly acted unlawfully and you are right to seek redress.

[ian valentine]

Hello there, I've stumbled across your post and feel I have to comment. I am a Loss Prevention Manager and have worked in Loss Prevention for many years, and I also train new recruits as to their rights / powers / ways of working.

 

Firstly, may I ask some questions:

 

1) Were you told why you were being detained? (i.e. Did they tell you what they thought you had stolen/done wrong?)

2) Did they tell you that you were under arrest/being detained?

3) Did they caution you?

4) I'm guessing by your member name you are male, but can you confirm? (If you are female were there female staff members present?)

5) How long in total were you detained for?

6) Did they put their hands on your person (not your trolly) at any time?

 

IMO, this is a classic case of false arrest. It begs the question as to what they were doing all that time that you were in the holding room. I would be very surprised if the person that instigated the incident did not lose their job.

 

If you answer the questions above, I can give you a more detailed response and hopefully help you with a potential course of action, although the letter to the CEO is a good start.

 

Lenny.

 

They told me that i would have to accompany them into the security office and refused to let me go on my way giving the reason that i had refused to show them my receipt. They told me that i would be detained in the security office until they checked everything out. I was never cautioned by the security guards or the Police, in fact the Police were very amused saying that they have made a bit of a cock up here haven't they. I am a male. I was detained for over an hour. Nobody put their hands on me, so no physical assault took place, although when two large security guards with aggressive atitudes confront you then you tend to try to avoid any physical interaction just for fear of being assaulted.

[ian valentine]

i would say that Asda may of been able to handle things better and not take so long to address things

 

However had you shown the receipt you would of been on your way without any bother

sounds to me that the staff were doing there job

 

Security staff in stores can only detain you if they have concrete evidence that they have witnessed themselves or seen via camera footage, and whilst a store are perfectly within their rights to ask for a receipt you are under no legal obligation to show it as far as i am aware. If the staff were only doing their job then they need serious retraining.

[renegadeimp]

Also, performing "spot checks" on customers? Thats just laughable.

[postggj]

Alarm Distress and Harassment is all that is needed for you to have been subjected to.

They do not physically have to lay their hands on you (SECURITY GUARDS)

that then would be common assault if they did

[ian valentine]

All that was asked for was a till receipt

by refusing is making the situation how it turned out

 

Why should Asda not ask to see a receipt

 

Could it of been a self service till they may of had reason to believe that items may of not been scanned properly

Providing proof in the way of a receipt would of been a painless, short, easy, resolution

 

showing a till receipt when exiting a shop is reasonable

 

Asda are entitled to ask to see a receipt. You are not obliged to show it to them however. It was a normal till so they could have easily asked the cashiers on duty in a matter of seconds, especially as it was a trolley load of quilts and bedding so not your normal everyday grocery shop. Showing a till receipt when exiting a shop is not reasonable as when showing the receipt often the person rummages through your property in the hope of finding something that should not be there. Fishing for shoplifters if you like, but what would happen if the cashier failed to scan an item and you did not know about it, cashiers make mistakes not taking security tags off all the time for example, you would be the one detained and arrested whilst the cashier would get off scot free. Hence i always refuse to show a receipt if asked.

[ian valentine]

The law is quite clear, a member of the public (i.e. anyone who isnt a Police Warrant holder) can only detain if they know an arrestable offence has been committed and that the person they are detaining they have reasonable suspicion to believe carried out that arrestable offence. In this case its a spot check and therefore unlawful to detain the person.

 

There may be a defence for Asda if they have large signs stating the policy clearly so that any reasonable person could read it and undestand it.

 

IMO they have clearly acted unlawfully and you are right to seek redress.

 

There were no signs up to say we reserve the right etc and that was confirmed by the security guard just before he insisted i return to the store, as i specifically asked him that question.