Accused of shoplifting after mistake. Should I complain?

In every shop I ever worked in, this was when you physically left the store as that point of crossing the shop threshold was when it was clear you weren't going to pay

that's one interpretation of the law but it isn't the only one.

How you take goods is the crucial point.

There are ways a person can commit the crime of shoplifting other than leaving the store with stolen goods.

For example they can move the item or exercise control over it in a way that's inconsistent with the shop owner's reasonable expectations about how shoppers will handle merchandise.

Putting items in or on a child's buggy is notoriously used to conceal goods.

Stores rarely take the benefit of the doubt view nowadays due to the increase in shoplifting.

The best you can do is make certain you don't put yourself into a position where there is doubt about your honesty and integrity. Think about how you might come across to others if you put things on the hood of the buggy - you may know 100% that you don't mean to shoplift, but nobody else does. Just don't do it anymore especially if you're sleep-deprived. It's no defence in law.

Many, many years ago, I found two pairs of Wolford tights in the buggy when DS was about 18 months. I took them back to the shop and explained. They thought it was hilarious.

such a shame they weren't my size or colour only joking.

I think it would be reasonable to complain about his attitude. Id start by apologizing re the milk and saying you understood the need for him to speak to you, however you felt his tone and approach was really off.

But again, irrelevant. You can’t accuse someone of shoplifting if they haven’t done the offence. They can stop someone and politely ask has everything been paid for before they leave and suggest that they think something hasn’t and that it would be a good idea to go pay for it. Alternatively they can wait for the person to walk out and then accuse them.

The posters who have said you were shoplifting are talking shite. You have to have the intent to commit theft and you didn’t have it. You did not commit a crime, you made an honest mistake!!
Defo complain.. the security guard sounds like a job pissed bully!!!

Two things simultaneously true here: you’re tired, distracted, have no intention to shoplift and make a mistake. The security guard is under pressure to reduce losses from the store, sees someone use a classic shoplifting technique, and is right to intervene. He has no idea if you’re genuine or if you’re one of the dozens of people per day chancing it. I expect he’s operating in hyper-vigilant mode as the ‘take someone aside gently discreetly’ method is just exploited by the people he tries to stop, who may be aggressive or do a runner.

So I don’t think anyone’s unreasonable. Sleep deprivation is rubbish. Clock it up to bad luck and move on.

Not technically in the UK
If it’s considered the item was concealed with the intent to steal then that’s all that’s needed.
However
Its harder to prove.

@Kandalamahe was doing his job correctly. He was challenging someone who was trying to leave the shop with goods they hadn’t paid for.

Which is the whole point and purpose of his job and what he is at work to do.

Do you not think a lot of shoplifters come out with the same story?

I once got home from a transatlantic trip to discover a couple of items amongst my souvenirs and realised that they must have fallen into my bag when I had been browsing at the airport shops. I was mortified because I had gone on a whole flight with “stolen” items in my bag. No alarm went off as I left the store. If it had it would have been so embarrassing as who would have believed that the items just “fell into” my bag?

I didn’t think to mail the items to the store and kept them (they were rather lovely keyrings). I am now thinking that I definitely should have posted them back.

It’s not a profession
you can however have a code of conduct without being in a profession

Yes but irrelevant- she has to have left the shop for the offence to have occurred. If he stopped her inside, she just has to say, oh I was just about to pay for that and go and pay.

To nick a £1.50 pint of milk, whilst spending another tenner on non essentials? Don't they have the sense to nick stuff worth nicking?

I went to Tesco yesterday. Very discreetly, in the corner of the door, were two policemen with a chap in the corner. He was cuffed. No shouting, no drama, no spectacle.

The guard was out of order imo. There was no need to shout.

So are a lot of jobs but that doesn’t give you a free pass to be aggressive and humiliate someone. He will have undergone training like everyone else, he won’t have wandered in off the street, and I doubt part of the training was what was described in the OP.

Any job you are doing and being paid for requires a level of professionalism that I don’t think was displayed on this occasion. That’s why I said OP should feed back, not necessarily complain, that the way this was handled was upsetting and unprofessional.

The aldi security guy may have been slightly confused!

I can understand your distress but you can't complain because even though it was a mistake you did almost walk out without paying for the milk. He could have handled it better but he was doing the job he was paid for. He could have called the police on you and many shops do this for every incidence.
I would avoid going on the shop again though

She had already paid for all the other stuff and was leaving.

She hadn’t left the shop! How could she have shoplifted if she still was in the shop? There is no process of ‘shoplifting’ whilst in the store. You either have committed shoplifting or you haven’t and that requires you to have fulfilled all the legal criteria of the offence which includes having stepped outside the store. Even then there is the intent to do the offence to prove.

Absolutely agree @YourAzureEagle if he’s incapable of doing the job properly he shouldn’t be doing it.

No one would employ someone who can’t do the job

@YourAzureEagle

Whatevs.

I think most reasonable people will agree that being a security guard ain’t a profession, regardless of what your dictionary says.

The way you want them to handle shop lifting is to make it subtle and with no public awareness of it.

That doesn’t work as a deterrent.

This is one you need to suck up. If you make a mistake that’s going to lead to shop lifting then you accept that’s humiliating.

(at least they did it before you left, otherwise you’d have actually committed the crime).

Unless it comes with an unreserved apology for your oversight, forget a complaint about the security guard’s attitude. You may have only overlooked milk but they will see similar theft and excuses all day every day.

Do you know how many woman use children and buggies to shoplift? The op is being entitled!

If they conduct illegal searches and breach the terms of their licence, yes!!

Indeed, but the word "professional" is commonly used in terms of conduct or standards regardless of whether the job itself is considered a profession.

From OED, one of several definitions that can be applied:

Professional

a person competent or skilled in a particular activity.
"she was a real professional on stage"

So, if we apply that, we are to assume the guard is "competent and skilled" as he will have to have undergone an SIA course and been accredited, but he fell short of his trade associations standards and was therefore unprofessional in his conduct.