To think this journalist from the independent is rather deluded ?

Think she requested it on email but didn’t file an SAR within 30 days of her store visit.

If the request was made within the 30 days the mum can make a complaint on a data breach. The company have to produce what is held on the date the request is received it cant go "cleaning" up their files and deleting data they dont want to hand over.

From the correspondence the mum has put out they have said the bare minimum about it, just that it gets deleted after 30 days.

Did M&S actually admit that there was CCTV footage or that there was active cameras recording in the area?

You’d think, wouldn’t you.

They responded to the complaint before the cctv was overwritten, suggesting there was either no footage and they didn’t investigate a complaint about child safety, or there was footage they thought should be scrubbed.

That’s deeply sus.
Surely they would want the CCTV so they can prove his innocence?

See that Marks and Spencer has hit the delete button on any cctv of their male employee apparently singling out a child for assistance in the underwear department. Funny that. The mum updated on X.

I have NEVER been asked if I wanted assistance in the bra section of an M and S store, in fact its often difficult to find an assistant to help. I can only assume Mr Helpful was lurking on the off chance.

My personal opinion is that a small minority of people are born with genuine gender dysphoria and the rest of the trans crowd are fetishists. No problem, as long as they don't impinge on my spaces or ask me to call them she, her.

Absolutely i don’t, was just clarifying the facts as known.

Do you believe that it is acceptable for a male shop assistant to approach a teenage girl in the lingerie department and offer help?

Because I don’t.

And I don’t think M&S thinks it’s ok either.

The thing is, some of the views on this thread mirror the official M&S stance; that it’s ok for men to try and discuss underwear with children. The company won’t say men who work for them won’t, or implement such a policy, so essentially saying “children may be approached by men who work in our stores to check if they need help with underwear purchases. It’s fine.”

It seems a company that’s totally disjointed and at odds with itself. The first communication with the mum was apologising and confirming the employee should not have been in the lingerie section. Then it hit the press and the official line dialled back that admission to suggest they should have been and it was a totally normal interaction. They also rather concerningly refused to acknowledge the issue being around the fact the girl is 14 and described the child as a “customer”. How has the issue been dealt with internally regarding that first apology? They’re in a tricky position either way with employee rights.

pps have pointed out the employee is identifiable. Is M&S leaving its staff open to this? If the mum had complained about bearded Gavin from food approaching her daughter in lingerie would they have said “oh sorry, come back and we’ll make sure Gavin doesn’t ask her about bras (though it might happen again to other girls).” The mum would have gone on X and told everyone his name as a warning, but the company would likely have taken the issue more seriously to start with and it wouldn’t have gone that far. On X the mum described the employee who went up to her 14 year old as a man of about 6,2 in tight jeans and shirt. She doesn’t say if she saw a name badge but whatever additional details she gave to the company were enough for them to know which employee she was referring to.

One pp accused the mum of transphobia, supposing that the mum wouldn’t mind any other man from the store engaging with her child about underwear (🤨). And without a confirmation or policy either way from M&S, the store is actually greenlighting all its male staff to do just that from now on if they want to. “She looked bewildered by all the different styles of knickers, I was just being nice and offering to help, like thingy did in that other store”. Wild.

It was not a bra fitting.

It was him "selling" her underwear and any conversation which is started by a male saying a can I help you to a woman or (in this case) a girl in the underwear department.

To be clear this man was not offering to fit her bra that we know of, the conversation didn’t get much further than him approaching her and asking her if she needed assistance, he disappeared as soon as her mum appeared, according to what her mum posted on Twitter.

It's not a question of whether you'd be happy for a trans employee to fit your daughter's bra. It's a question of whether you'd be happy for a man to do it.

Identity is just a label which doesn't change material reality no matter how much people think it does. You can hold that opinion and still be supportive of trans people.

The entirety of the Independent’s output is “woke rage bait”.

When did men in lingerie sections become anything other than weird and creepy?

Yes there are some legitimate reasons for men being there.
And yes times have changed. but

@PlanetJanette Of course if their conduct were in some other way nefarious or could be legitimately perceived as such, that could be a safeguarding issue. But again, not the case in this situation.

we don’t know the answer to that either.

And the Independent needs the money.

Well, firstly, we haven't heard from this girl. So there's nothing to believe or disbelieve from her

bloody hell she is a child so we shouldn’t! @PlanetJanette I think you could do with some safe guarding and child protection training, bit like M&S

Children are encouraged to speak out if they feel unsafe or something inappropriate has happened. Far too many people look the other way which can lead to horrible consequences for children.

Retail staff (as a general rule of thumb) do not do security it comes under the "I dont get paid enough for that" contract clause.

But M&S may have a different insurance policy and training attitude to store security and staff welfare.

(But imo its unlikely)

Being generous, I suppose he could have been walking through and thought she was a shoplifter.

And if the customer had said yes I do need help - what would the conversation have been? Given where they were, it would have been about underwear, unless the next sentence out of his mouth was, I will get someone to come and help you. In which case the interaction was pointless.

and that's what raises suspicion.

Well, firstly, we haven't heard from this girl. So there's nothing to believe or disbelieve from her.

And we should not hear from the girl in this kind of situation. She has a mother whos job it is to speak up for her.

Her mother has raised the safeguarding issue with M&S

In the same way the jurno should not need to ask her childs opinion when working out if she as a parent would allow a male stranger speak to her child about her underwear.

Its the jurnos job to parent her child and in so far as possible to prevent her child ending up in situations which could result in harm.

My child said
"I dont even like women fitting me for a bra"
is not the child saying
"I will allow a man fit me for a bra"

But its a good click bait revenue generator.

sorry i wasn't clear, her assumption is clearly that a class of males do not pose a risk because they've uttered the words 'I am trans'.

There should never be a sacred caste.

And it's not like she has any evidence that they don't pose a risk. If anything the evidence points the other way.

I too am flummoxed. Why do this?