Woman passively outed for shoplifting and I did nothing?

[Juliesdagger]

Weird one that’s rolling in my mind as I’m wondering if I should have stepped in ☹️
busy well known coffee shop in a supermarket this morning. As I was queuing, a man in front of me said loudly to the lady paying at the till “don’t forget the crisps you’ve got” as he spoke so loudly it was hard not to then hear the rest - she looked confused and said what crisps? I’m just getting my coffee” and again in a loud voice the man said “the crisps you put in your shopping bag” again the woman looked bemused, looked down at her carrier bag and said oh gosh they must have fallen in when I got my phone” (or similar, I didn’t get the exact words) and took them out to be scanned. She looked a bit upset and I heard her apologising to the barista at the till saying they were for her kid’s snack and she couldn’t believe she’d nearly forgotten to pay for them. The man who had called her out then started scoffing loudly saying “oh yeah, that happens to me allllll the time, things just fall into my bag and I forget about them” and smirking and rolling his eyes, clearly insinuating she had stolen them or tried to. The woman just looked clearly flustered and by this time had paid and she left looking like she was going to cry.

I then to my surprise saw the man leave
the queue (despite him being next in line to order) and head for the staff only door so he must work there! And was only waiting in line to see if she paid at the till for the crisps.

it’s been playing on my mind all day. The woman was clearly upset but I would have been too if I’d Been passively accused like that 🤷‍♀️I know you can’t type cast but she was buying an overpriced coffee and pastry, the crisps couldn’t have cost more
than £0.60 extra 🤷‍♀️and she looked well dressed, a bit flustered but not wonder and really just like your
average mum rushing Round supermarket etc so I guess I’m doubting if she was stealing? And I feel bad I didn’t challenge that It felt unprofessional of this man who clearly worked there to passively accuse her?

or am I being naive and she likely was attention to shoplift for a reason I can’t fathom?

<hangs head in shame . . . >

I was more thinking that there would be 50 security staff watching anyone who wasn't in Jaeger.

I meant posh not "pish" but thinking about it, pish works just as well if not better in this case.

It's my understanding STAFF can't challenge shoplifters until the point they are LEAVING the premises.
So if this bloke was STAFF, he's out of order, and a knob

😆😆😆

A woman stole something that she quite clearly could afford to pay. A male staff member saw and called her out. But the male is in the wrong and the woman (who commited a crime) is in the right and deserves sympathy. Only on mumsnet!

How was it aggressive?

Maybe she was shoplifting, maybe she wasn't. Fair enough for the staff member to point the crisps out to her, although it should have been done more discreetly.

What I do find unsavoury (albeit unlikely) is talk of a criminal record and having her child taken from her over a bag of crisps!

Nothing to be gained and potentially the proprietor could be sued.

Don't be ridiculous, they are hardly going to get sued by someone who was asked to pay for the crisps they DID have in their bag and weren't intending on paying for. Which will no doubt be on cctv

If they had genuinely fallen in there her story wouldn't have changed, and she'd have left them behind

He wasn't aggressive, just a bit snide.

I'm 100% sure you've seen staff be ruder or more aggressive to less well-dressed or non-white customers. You just didn't take much notice.

That's because it's not true. The offence takes place once someone takes the item with the intention of paying for it.

The reason people get confused is that the police will nearly always want to see that the person has gone past a point of payment (in this case the till) in order to prove that the intention is there.

In this case it doesn't really matter. The police will never come out for something like a packet of crisps, that's why it's easier for an employee to just get her to pay for them rather than to mess about try and get the police involved. These kind of situations happen every single day, this is just the first time OP has witnessed it.

He didn’t accuse her of stealing.
He reminded her to pay for the crisps that had somehow dropped from the counter into her bag /she had stolen/she had forgotten she had put into her bag for her child.
She was flustered and embarrassed (and changed her story twice)

I feel that, from the way you have described this incident, had she been genuine, she would have acted with gratitude that he reminded her to pay.

I think it’s possible she was stealing with the attitude that tiny items don’t matter and that she is entitled to them if she is buying a coffee and also with the attitude that she’s got away with it before…it’s become a habit almost.
Of course nobody knows for sure, which is why you and other bystanders probably felt uncomfortable.

I think he was simply doing the job for which he was being paid, - for the benefit of us all, although I agree his follow-up comments weren’t necessary if she had paid for the crisps by then.

I think you did the right thing by not intervening as was made clear to you when he left the queue and went through the staff only door.

It’s now possible with the latest technology, that being known as a shop-lifter in the supermarket or in the locality, he had received a face-recognition alert as soon as she walked in, past the cctv cameras. And he then followed company policy by observing her carefully and by reminding her to pay for the item she clearly wasn’t planning on paying for, (hence her initial comment ‘What crisps ?’)

Sounds like she is a known shop lifter. Hence a member of staff standing behind her. I wouldn't have intervened at all.

So in your situation if the "lad working there" had pointed out that you hadn't paid before you left the shop, would you have just said "oh my goodness, I can't believe I forgot, I wasn't thinking and I'm so sorry" and paid at once, or would you have denied it and then made up a different story to excuse your behaviour?

I'm guessing the former.

I didn’t know people could get a thrill from stealing

I find that stranger than the level of intricate detail in your OP.

But aside from that, if she really was intending to pay for the crisps that 'accidentally must've fallen into her bag', why didn't she notice them missing?

I mean literally minutes before, she was choosing crisps for her child's snack, and then she was paying for her coffee but miraculously forgot about them??

Even when prompted she said 'What crisps, I’m just getting my coffee'? 🙄

Oh for god’s sake.. is that a joke? You think she should have a criminal prosecution, waste police time for a packet of crisps?

I used to volunteer in charity shops and I can agree with your comment mouse82
Heard it all - seen it all. It is the people you least expect too.

You are forgetting that the man said he saw her put them in her bag. Specifically he said the crisps you put in your bag. Not some random act of something bizarrely falling off a shelf and into a bag. He saw her put the crisps in. A deliberate act.

you also forget she then contradicted herself, from going from bemused and what crisps all the way back to I forgot and was buying them for my kid, and in a coffee shop, where from the time of deliberately putting in bag, to being so confused you didn’t even know what the man was talking about, would have been literal minutes.

now. Yes it’s feasible that she put them in her bag, and had absolutely no recollection 3 mins later, but the more likely scenario is she was thieving.

She's a thief yeah why shouldn't she be shamed?

I am guessing she was stealing unless she was having a bad day and her head was all over the place. I know when I am super distracted it would be possible for me to do something similar (luckily not happened yet). I think the man wanted to make a scene really and embarass her.

She was nicking them!! Of course she was. And FWIW a packet of Kettle Crisps from Starbucks is £1.34, not 60p. If she was well dressed and seemed like a flustered Mum, she probably was, but she can still think ‘they can fuck off if I’m paying £1.34 for a packet of crisps.’

She was probably nearly crying and upset because she just got caught stealing crisps when she can probably afford them easily!!!

He definitely saw her steal them.

See I don’t think it should be done discreetly, if it was as he says, he saw her deliberately put them in her bag, which as they were in there seems the most likely thing, and it would have been minutes before, then I don’t think she deserved discretion. She was stealing from them.

i don’t think she deserves a criminal sentence, but where do you draw the line, when is it ok to steal.

I love how some people are trying to turn this into a 'men like to humiliate women' thing...

Theft is theft. Calling her out and embarrassing her will hopefully stop her from doing it again in the future. I'd hope he does the same to men!

Being pedantic, the employee’s intervention wasn’t at all passive!

If every thief was publicly shamed like this they’d soon stop!