Shoplifting by a Customer

When the Defendant was arrested he was found to have about £300's worth of goods from the DIY store in whose car park his car was parked, and he could not provide any proof of purchase.

The Crown's case relied on four things:

• information from the store's Electronic Point of Sale (EPoS) system
• matching the bar codes from the products to those in the store
• matching the security tags to those used in the store
• the store's inventory management system which apparently showed a stock shortage in respect of the items in the Defendant's car.

My Report explained that:

• the EPoS information did not show anything relevant to the case
the bar codes would not only be common to every branch of that retailer but because the items were major brands the bar codes would be same in every retailer across the UK
• the security tags were also common the various retailers
• the apparent stock shortages could not be relied upon because the method used for the stock take was unreliable.

The case was dropped when the Prosecution Barrister read my report.