AIBU to think that the the CPS have lost the plot

[creamteas]

The CPS have decided to go ahead and prosecute three men for stealing food from a skip behind an Iceland store (Guardian link).

The food was destined for landfill and, as far as I know, the store are not seeking to prosecute.

It is apparently in the 'public interest', presumably as a test case for other food waste raiders.

I wouldn't want to dumpster dive for my food, but if it is genuinely thrown out for rubbish and people want to eat it, what is the problem?

Holding them for 19 hours seems like sufficient punishment in itself. Sounds as though they wouldn't have prosecuted if the bins had been in the street, a big issue being that they went over a wall into the shop's enclosed back yard.

There is no problem to my mind.

If somebody throws their property away because they genuinely want to be rid of it, I see no moral objection to anyone picking it up and making use of it.

I agree. But I think it's a bit different if they climb over your high garden wall to ransack your bins on your enclosed property. My guess is that that is why they're prosecuting this one.

If they climbed over my garden wall in the middle of the night, I'd be terrified and I'd want the police to grab them.

I don't think anybody at the Iceland store was alarmed though.

It was midnight and the store was closed (I assume).

And they didn't do it with intent to 'steal' in the common sense meaning of the word.

Let them go, I say.

What a waste of time and money.

Now, if the men had been stealing in bulk with the intention of selling it on then there might be reason for flogging it all the way through the courts.

I think it's the climbing over the fence which is the issue. The police can't ignore the call and wouldn't have known until they got there what was happening.

I agree, but a few posters here don't

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/1981484-to-think-that-the-Crown-Prosecution-Service-should-have-better-things-to-do?