A company that sues shoplifters on behalf of retailers has accused a Citizens Advice Bureau official of organising a campaign of harassment against it.
That one raised an eyebrow to say the least. The CAB is hardly an organisation that harasses others. So what, exactly has it been doing, eh?
RLP has accused its critics of trying to damage its business in a “vindictive” campaign.
In particular it has accused a national official of the CAB, Richard Dunstan, of “orchestrating” a three-year long “sustained campaign of harassment and defamation” against it and its staff.
He is the CAB’s policy officer dealing with the civil recovery industry and denies the accusations.
It’s probably fair to say that the CAB has been successful in dealing with this company on behalf of its clients and RLP don’t like it much. It sees criticism as “harassment” indeed it sees such fight-backs as a “sustained campaign”.
Really?
To put all of this into perspective, RLP is a parasitic organisation that is much like the ambulance chasers, feeding on the misfortune of others. In this case, retailers who are losing out to thieves and those accused of the theft. Retailers can always use their own lawyers to chase up losses, but instead we have these recovery companies stepping into the breach that isn’t there – a bit like the PPI recovery companies who offer a service that is entirely unnecessary.
Now, instead of doing what they should and going to the police and pressing charges before engaging in civil recovery, these retailers are employing companies such as RLP to pursue them. However, there is a flaw – a gaping great chasm – in their reasoning. In this country, we are innocent of crimes until proven guilty in a court of law. RLP and their clients are not chasing people who have been proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt, they are chasing people who are alleged to have stolen goods:
Typically letters are sent to the alleged thieves, even if they have not been prosecuted, demanding they pay compensation to the retailers, or face being taken to court.
Alleged is not the same thing as guilty. In other words in law these people are innocent. If the retailer has a case, then go through the proper channels and prosecute… If not, well, too bad, frankly. Blackmail is an ugly word, is it not?
It seems, however that not all has gone well for RLP, as a judgement in April went against them and they would rather people not know about it:
At Oxford County Court in April, two teenage girls were sued by a leading retailer.
The judge ordered that their identities should be kept anonymous.
RLP’s client lost and the judge criticised the legal basis of its case.
And why was this?
RLP had demanded that the girls pay £137.50 towards the costs of the retailer, but the judge dismissed the claim saying the costs had been exaggerated.
An example of such exaggeration is here:
Caroline King, a university student from Bedfordshire, said she was shopping in Boots when she was accused of stealing a lip gloss worth £17.
She denies taking anything but received a demand for £137.50 as compensation for her “wrongful act”.
The demand was issued by Retail Loss Prevention – the biggest civil recovery company in the UK which operates on behalf of such high street names as Boots and Tesco.
The letter threatened court action and said Ms King could also be liable for costs if she did not pay.
Eventually her mother settled by paying the demand because she said her daughter felt anxious and threatened.
There is a word that describes this behaviour…
This, then, is the kind of parasitic organisation we are dealing with – and rightly, the CAB is standing up to them. There is another champion riding to the rescue in the unlikely guise of Denis MacShane:
In a debate in Parliament on Tuesday on the defamation Bill, Denis MacShane MP criticised the recent actions of RLP and Schillings.
He attacked the law firm for ”showering defamation writs” on consumer groups.
Quite right, too. Woah! Hang on a moment there… Roll back a bit…
Schillings? Where have we heard that name before? Ah, right, parasitic company seeks to shut down criticism of its activities by using a law firm with form in this area. Indeed, whenever a nasty organisation or individual wants to shut down legitimate criticism, the excrescent Schillings rises like a steaming turd from the dung heap all ready to serve the writ for a shilling or two for the Gigg. Why am I not surprised?
Jackie Lambert RLP’s MD is claiming that she has received death threats. If so, then that is a matter for the police and those individuals can be pursued as necessary. That is not, however, an excuse to close down reasonable criticism of the company’s activities, which is what is happening:
The law firm’s letters demand that not only should all the defamatory and threatening posts be taken down, but that the websites should reveal to RLP the identities of all the contributors who made the comments.
Nick Spooner of Legal Beagles said: “We are shocked because it appears to us that far from having any genuine complaint about the nature of the comments it appears RLP want to stifle the reporting of the adverse judgement at Oxford County Court because it puts into question their business model.”
“We are refusing to comply with any of their demands,” he added.
Damn right, too. Robust refusal is absolutely the correct response when dealing with bullies trying to stifle free speech. Again, if individuals have broken the law, fine, take the relevant action against those individuals, but this is not what these people want:
Schillings also wrote to BWB, demanding that it take down from its own website its report of the Oxford court case in which it had acted for the two teenage girls.
And Schillings even demanded that the CAB withdraw all its previous publications on civil recovery, including two reports published in2009 and 2010 which are available on its website.
In other words, they do want to shut down legitimate criticism – why else try to suppress the court judgement? The only response to this is to go Streisand on them – and of course, remind them of the reply given in Arkell v Pressdram (1971).
Jackie Lambert of RLP told the BBC she had now complained to the police about being harassed, and they had taken witness statements from some of her staff.
“This has been going on for three years; I have to protect myself and my staff from threats,” she said.
Indeed. Not to mention the “£15m racket” they have going. Nice little earner, that.
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Update: Following the comments from Julia and Maaarrghk! regarding the plight of the retailers – this wasn’t really the gist of this post; freedom of speech was and the attempts by RLP and Schillings to stifle it. However, the CAB do recognise that the retailers have a point regarding losses and the lack of action on the part of the police. They have this to say on the matter:
Citizens Advice does not condone crime of any kind or level, and does not underestimate the cost of retail crime, but in many of the CAB-reported cases, the alleged theft is strongly denied.
The retailers’ threat of civil recovery has deeply unfair consequences and we are surprised that household names are prepared to risk their reputation in this way.
*Citizens Advice believes that if retailers, dissatisfied with the level of governmental action against retail crime, are to take matters into their own hands, they must do so using means that are legitimate and transparently fair.
Our key concern with this practice is its reliance on intimidation, shame and ignorance of the law for its effectiveness. Many of the recipients of civil recovery threats are teenagers and many others have serious mental health problems, or are otherwise especially vulnerable.
Claims by retailers that civil recovery helps to counter the cost of retail crime just don’t add up – the total amount ‘recovered’ by the agents for their retailer clients each year is, we estimate, less than 0.4 per cent of the total that crime costs the retail sector each year. Retailers should work with the Home Office, the Police and other organisations to identify a range of legitimate and transparently fair alternatives to civil recovery which target crime committed by persistent offenders and criminal gangs.
*my emphasis
I repeat what I said in the comments regarding this point; two wrongs do not make a right and resorting to extortion with menaces far outweighs the original offence.
“Now, instead of doing what they should and going to the police and pressing charges…”
And seeing the police do nothing, or pass it on to the CPS and have them do nothing, or – amazingly, should it ever get that far – have the magistrates do nothing…
I’m in two minds on this one – the ‘punishment’ meted out to even regular, persistent shoplifters is a joke. There’d be no demand for this ‘service’ if the justice system wasn’t broken.
The answer to that one of course is to fix the core problem. Two wrongs don’t make a right and what RLP are doing is wrong – quite apart from their egregious attempts to stifle free speech.
Well, yes, that’s always the answer – but it’s easier said than done. And I can’t blame shopkeepers for taking an alternative course of action where one exists.
I think that part of the problem is the £75 thing I read about a while back, where Police have effectively said that stores reporting shoplifting of goods under that value risk being charged with wasting Police time. Also they would take no action against shoplifters who stole goods of less than this value.
Much as I do oppose the likes of RPL, I can well understand the feelings of busnesses that do not feel that they no longer have the option of calling the Police.
As I said to Julia, two wrongs don’t make a right. Any sympathy I might have for the retailer evaporates completely when they take the law into their own hands. We aren’t talking about £75 either – one case reported by the CAB was for over £600 for an alleged theft amounting to a few quid. This is legalised extortion and there is no appeals process. There is no “right” about this. It should be illegal. That it isn’t is criminal.
The CAB also recognises the problem retailers face with the police:
RLP’s practices are neither. There are no shades of grey here. Any more than there were with the shyster who speculatively invoiced alleged copyright pirates and was rightly destroyed for what was pure extortion of people who were in many cases innocent of the offence.
If you want to see what type of organisation this is, look no further than their response to criticism and the company they keep.
But the contract with the justice system is that it is supposed to be superior to people taking the law into their own hands because it carries out justice calmly and without prejudice.
If it isn’t going to do its side of the bargain, then people should be expected to take the law into their own hands.
And no, the CAB doesn’t recognise the problem retailers face with the police, they’ve just come out with a glib “must be done by the book” statement, possibly even knowing that no government is going to fix this problem (while we descend towards fascism). They’re another bunch of fakecharity milquetoasts in this country that have no concept of the cost of things.
I’ve quoted the relevant passage twice now, so even a cursory glance demonstrates that your statement is entirely untrue. What part of “Citizens Advice believes that if retailers, dissatisfied with the level of governmental action against retail crime, are to take matters into their own hands, they must do so using means that are legitimate and transparently fair.” are you struggling to understand?
The CAB is not suggesting that retailers cannot or should not use the civil recovery process to claim their losses – irrespective of whether a criminal case is outstanding. The latter will make a case more likely to succeed, however. The former means that these people are innocent under the law as they have not been proven to be guilty beyond reasonable doubt. That said, if the retailer has evidence of guilt sufficient to satisfy a balance of probabilities, their case will likely as not succeed. However, in the case of a wrongful accusation based upon poorly trained and over zealous security guards making a mistake, there must be an appeals process whereby the accused can challenge the evidence and the charges before it gets to court.
What the CAB have said is that such a process should be fair and transparent. They should also have used the word proportionate as this is what did for RLP in the courts. When the retailer has not actually incurred losses, but is engaging in a form of revenge, making up the losses on the back of a fag packet, the courts do not look kindly on what is, by any other name, fraud.
This, and the extortion being used is not okay. There are no mitigating circumstances, no excuses and no justification – sharp practice is always wrong in all circumstances and is a far worse offence than the original crime being pursued. I amazed that I have to keep saying it; two wrongs do not make a right. They never have and they never will.
“What part of “Citizens Advice believes that if retailers, dissatisfied with the level of governmental action against retail crime, are to take matters into their own hands, they must do so using means that are legitimate and transparently fair.” are you struggling to understand?”
What part of that statement translates to the CAB saying that they recognise that there is a problem? That’s a fence sitting “if the retailers think there is a problem”, which is a different thing.
“However, in the case of a wrongful accusation based upon poorly trained and over zealous security guards making a mistake, there must be an appeals process whereby the accused can challenge the evidence and the charges before it gets to court.”
No, that’s what the court is for: to weigh up the charges and evidence.
“What the CAB have said is that such a process should be fair and transparent. They should also have used the word proportionate as this is what did for RLP in the courts. When the retailer has not actually incurred losses, but is engaging in a form of revenge, making up the losses on the back of a fag packet, the courts do not look kindly on what is, by any other name, fraud.”
Courts are transparent. And do you know what the grounds were for that £137.50? Was it revenge, or were they including other costs, which the courts are saying cannot be included like the cost of processing the law suit? On a £17 lipstick, what do you think the total amount should be?
“This, and the extortion being used is not okay. There are no mitigating circumstances, no excuses and no justification – sharp practice is always wrong in all circumstances and is a far worse offence than the original crime being pursued. I amazed that I have to keep saying it; two wrongs do not make a right. They never have and they never will.”
What “extortion”? Anyone involved in a lawsuit will offer a settlement. Google recently got sued by Oracle for a couple of billion, I’m sure Oracle’s lawyers sat down and discussed a settlement with Google which didn’t go to court. Oracle then won the case with $0 of damage. Same thing here.
It is self evident and not what you are claiming that it is. It says what it says perfectly clearly in plain English.
But they are trying to get money on the basis of speculative invoicing, thereby avoiding the courts. The courts are a threat to get people to pay up. On the occasion that someone stood up to them, they lost and rightly so. So, yes, there should be a process whereby the retailer looks at the evidence and decides that actually they got it wrong long before it gets to court. That much should be obvious common sense even to the cretins at RLP and their clients.
This was why the case collapsed. The figures were inflated charges that had no bearing on actual costs. Indeed, the costs were somewhat speculative anyway, given that the goods were recovered at the time of the offence. Under cross examination, the retailer was forced to admit that it was making this up. Frankly, they should be facing criminal charges for fraud, extortion and perjury.
£17 – which was recovered at the time. There was no loss of revenue to the business as the people involved in the apprehension were doing what they are normally paid to do. Therefore, no loss occurred. From the case summary:
As actual no loss occurred, no further action should have been taken.
Demanding money that is not and never was owed, by the use of intimidation and threats. Damn right it is extortion. This was a good judgement and hopefully will see a beginning to an end of this sharp practice. Preferably with the owners of RLP suffering the same fate as Andrew Crossley.
“£17 – which was recovered at the time. ”
So for someone who sees no moral problem with shoplifting, we have now removed any disincentive to do so. Some might think this is a bad thing.
I agree entirely LR.
But if not RPL and their ilk, who else can victims of shoplifting go to?
It would seem that the law of their own hands is the only law currently available to the retailers. Either that or a time consuming and expensive civil case that they have to carry out themselves.
The answer is less about who rather than how. Any process must include an appeals process for the wrongly accused. Nowhere do these people allow the evidence to be challenged or the charges to be disputed.
Interesting to look at this in light of the post this morning at ‘OoL’ regarding the police sending letters to people suspected of ‘dogging’. Even to their work addresses!
Yes I saw that parallel when I read the OoL post. This is exactly the same behaviour.
“In this country, we are innocent of crimes until proven guilty in a court of law. RLP and their clients are not chasing people who have been proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt, they are chasing people who are alleged to have stolen goods”
If the Digital Economy Act becomes law, it won’t just be “alleged” shop lifters:
“The anti-piracy elements of the UK’s controversial and much-delayed Digital Economy Act are continuing their slow march to implementation with the publication of OFCOM’s updated Initial Obligations Code today.”
“Under the Code subscribers will be able to lodge an appeal against wrongful accusations of infringement. It will cost an Internet account holder £20.00 to do so.“
I am well aware that the subject of file-sharing & copyright infringement is a highly emotive one, but this extends the “guilty unless proven innocent” a stage further, in that you will have to pay £20 to even try and prove your innocence!
Details here:
http://torrentfreak.com/new-details-of-uk-piracy-monitoring-plan-made-public-120626/
I know, I posted about this over at OoL. There is a trend here. Stigler mentioned fascism – this behaviour is part of that.
Same tactics as the parasitic copyright chasers who look up an IP address and then chase the person for hundreds of £ with the threat of court action if they don’t pay. And look where one of the main lawyers (ACS:Law) who carried out this practise ended up – bankrupt!
Hopefully, this judgement will see these people suffering the same fate as Crossley.
There are some fine comments in the thread but one word springs to mind for me – vultures.
Vultures, yes, a good analogy
That should be “alleged” person – as they are innocent until proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt.
Quite apart from that, the civil process is there to recoup actual losses arising from a tort, it is not there to punish or deter. In order to do this, the retailer and RLP have engaged in fraud and perjury. They should be prosecuted for this, but likely as not, they won’t. This offence far outweighs any alleged shoplifting.
If the retailer wants to deter people it has caught shoplifting and the police decide not to take action (possibly quite legitimately because there is no evidence of intent) then they may ban that person from their stores. They may also quite legitimately share this information with other retailers as property owners they are quite entitled to disallow people from entering for whatever reason they choose.
They are not entitled to abuse the law to suit their own ends.
Frankly, I find it disturbing that my fellow travellers who rightly complain when the state engages in such reprehensible behaviour are willing to give a free pass to corporate bullies when they do it. It is not right whoever does it. The CAB and Legal Beagles have got it right, frankly, and more power to anyone who stands up to these sharks and stops them dead in their tracks. I do not condone the actions of the two teenage girls involved in this case when they stole the goods. I do, however take my hat off to them for standing their ground in dealing with the worst kind of sharp practice. No money was owed, No loss occurred, therefore, no money should be paid to either the retailer or RLP.
RLP are engaging in bullying of people who may well be innocent of the charges laid against them. Many of us rightly consider this to be a bad thing.
“That should be “alleged” person – as they are innocent until proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt.”
I’m not referring to the people in this case, but people who are criminally minded.
If the retailer wants to deter people it has caught shoplifting and the police decide not to take action (possibly quite legitimately because there is no evidence of intent) then they may ban that person from their stores. They may also quite legitimately share this information with other retailers as property owners they are quite entitled to disallow people from entering for whatever reason they choose.
But that’s still not a deterrent to someone trying it on in a shop they wouldn’t normally go in, does it?
I posit that the result of this case is that it will increase the incentives to shoplift. Do you disagree and if so, why?
Where is your evidence for your assertion?
People still go to gaol and are still fined for criminal behaviour. That doesn’t stop people doing it – never has, never will, why should this case have any effect whatsoever on potential shoplifters?
What it will do, hopefully, is deter rogue retailers and RLP from engaging in further sharp practice. Although, I suspect it will take a few more lost court cases, a fine from the ICO and suspension by the Law Society following the complaints so far received to finally kill this one off. Andrew Crossley was successfully defeated. These nasty bastards can be similarly defeated.