Civil recovery letter for daughter

[bigmac161]

Hi everyone my daughter who was 17yrs old at the time, was caught shop lifting from boots last month, she walked out of boots with a small pack of wipes and a sandwich. She was on her lunch break from her part-time employment so was in her uniform.

 

It would seem a genuine mistake as she was chatting to friends who had just come into the shop and she forgot she had items and followed everyone out of shop.

 

It wasn't until 4 days after this incident that the police rang my house asking my daughter to come to the station.

 

They had CTV images of my daughter and friends in store and because she had another shops uniform on the police asked her manager

for her telephone number so they could speak with her.

 

We went to station same day and she was cautioned and given a penalty notice of £80.

 

Police were only interested in knowing if she realised her mistake after walking out of shop, to which she replied "YES"

She did in her defence tell me the day after that she had walked out of boots and forgot to pay.

But even after all this they still said she would be better off taking fine as if it went to court she could get a criminal record.

So we reluctantly accepted it and thought this would be the end of the matter!

 

Well we have received 3 letters so far, one from boots stating my daughter is barred from boots,

then two others from RLP asking for immediate payment of £163.99 there is no break down of costs,

just 3 pages of dribble about loss of earnings and time.

 

My daughter has now turned 18 and is worrying this will damage her credit rating

and they have said "Failure to pay amount due under our civil action may result in:

 

• County / Sherrif court proceedings being brought against you
  
• The value of the claim increasing
  
• You may have a judgement awarded against you which may affect your credit rating
  

My daughter is extremely anxious, she has no job now and is a fulltime student with no income. I'm hoping someone could advise me on what to do next.

[dx100uk]

forget RLP

 

there is nothing they can do to her or her credit rating

 

dx

[honeybee13]

Hello bigmac, welcome to CAG.

 

Please try to take some time to read around this forum, you will find loads of similar threads.

 

The £80 fine is the end of things with the legal system. Think of civil recovery as a parallel justice system that is sending speculative invoices to try and take money off people. You will receive ever more desperate letters, some with scary red writing. In the end, they will give up.

 

I expect more advice will be along later. Don't worry.

 

My best, HB

[ScarletPimpernel]

Your daughter has been dealt with by the appropriate authorities, and that is an end to the matter.

 

If you have a read of a few threads here you will see that RLP huff and puff a great deal, but that is all they can do. You can ignore their letters, or you can send a simple letter stating that any liability to them or their client is denied - and that's all - and then ignore them.

[bigmac161]

Many thanks guys

[ericsbrother]

Who gave your daughters' details to RLP in the first place as no-one had any authority to do so. There is no debt to them, Boots had the opportunity to make good any losses and they went along with the fixed penalty fine so I dont believe the police should have given Boots her name and address either. You try getting info from them about your burglary and they wont even tell you what court the perpetrator is being tried at, let alone hand over his details for a civil suit. ditto car crime.