to think that the Crown Prosecution Service should have better things to do ..

[bonvivant]

than prosecute people taking unwanted food from a skip?

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jan/28/three-charged-vagrancy-act-food-skip-iceland

I saw this, it's ridiculous. What a waste of time, money and resources. Supermarkets bin a scandalous amount of perfectly good food, it should go to those who need it.

That is disgusting. How the fuck is that in the public interest. I used to do that all the time as a student. How things have changed.

YANBU.

I completely agree with you. The food was going to be binned anyway. IMO it is a complete and utter waste of public money to be prosecuting these three people.

I read it and thought the world had gone mad - why aren't we prosecuting Iceland for wasting food in this way.

Would you have a problem if someone climbed over your wall into your garden and rifled through your bin before you had put it out to be collected? if you wouldn't then fair comment, if you would then YABU.

Stupid.

Prosecuting people for taking waste food. I had a skip outside my house and people took stuff. I don't see the problem. There is massive food waste in this country while people struggle to make ends meet.

I can think of a good many people who should have been prosecuted for the role they played in the financial crisis.

bang to rights

dont take stuff that isnt yours

or intend to

whether you think there is mitigation or not you cannot take stuff without asking!

( plus liability for Iceland if they all got cholera or simialr )

they climbed over a wall, they intended to steal
they knew what they were doing was ( going to be) theft

i dont want people nicking stuff out of my bins

same diff

It's not Iceland footing the bill though is it - it's us taxpayers. Ludicrous!

i wouldnt worry too much about the court service wasting money tbh

really
bottomless pit

and the " we were hungry " think is balls

go and claim benefit
use a foodbank or

GASP get a job

It's only a bottomless pit because us fools pay taxes to allow our money to be wasted in this way,

Although they shouldnt be breaking into places, they could course damage etc they needed a slapped wrist not being prosecuted

Ridiculous. Hasn't this been done before? With lots of ham?

any day in any court will be a lot of offences that you might think are trivial - theft of a fruit and nut - criminal damage to a shoe are two I can think of.....

they KNEW what they were doing was wrong, by climbing over the fence
they KNEW it wasnt theirs to take ( regardless of the moral smoke screen thing they are now presenting)

they got caught

If someone was hungry enough to rifle through my bin for food I don't see how I could mind.

It would be interesting to know why they think its in the publics intrest

They could explore other options. Not all poor people steal and it's insulting to suggest that.

They are squatters so sre used to a certain amount of grey areas in their behaviour. It's the lifestyle.

Scratch. You're not a huge food supplier that might have poisoned them and made themselves liable

I would say that the reason this has been considered to be in the public interest is because allowing it to pass could result in a loss of public order.

Think about the number of people attending foodbanks and the rise in shoplifting under austerity measures. Then think about the riots of a couple of years ago and how people who are normally law abiding will loot when they think there won't be consequences. Now think about the insane amount of food being thrown away

It's not a stretch to see how you might end up with mass disturbance at premises where food is routinely disposed of once it becomes public knowledge that there will be no consequences.

But would they be liable if they had taken reasonable steps to secure the food items?

Don't get me wrong, I think it's morally obscene that so much food is wasted when people are going hungry, but I daresay that's the public interest element - the maintaining of law and order.