The Store Detective's Dilemma
| DOI | 10.1177/002201839405800407 |
| Author | John E Stannard |
| Published date | 01 November 1994 |
| Date | 01 November 1994 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
THE
STORE
DETECTIVE'S
DILEMMA
John
EStannard·
Pity the poor store detective. Confronted with the apparent inability of
the police to deal with the burgeoning problem
of
the persistent shoplifter,
he now finds his own powers of arrest seemingly set at nought by the
Court of Appeal in R v
Self
[l992] 3 All ER 476.
The facts of the case are simple and straightforward. A Mrs Stanton,
who was a store detective at Woolworth's in Kingston-upon-Thames, was
on duty one afternoon in October 1990 when she saw Graham Self, the
appellant in the case, place a
bar
of
chocolate into his pocket, after which
he left the store without paying. Mrs Stanton pursued the appellant down
the street accompanied by one
of
the sales assistants, a Mr Frost. When
the appellant realised that he was being followed, he threw the chocolate
under a car, from where it was retrieved by Mrs Stanton, who asked the
appellant to accompany her back to the store. The appellant then became
very agitated (not without reason, as he was a serving police constable)
and was arrested after a struggle by Mr Frost and a public-spirited
bystander, Mr Mole. During the struggle both Mr Frost and Mr Mole
sustained minor injuries.
The appellant was subsequently charged with theft and with assault
with intent to resist arrest contrary to s 38
of
the Offences Against the
Person Act 1861. At his trial at Kingston Crown Court before Wakely J
and a jury he was acquitted on
the
charge
of
theftIbut convicted under
s 38.
It
was assumed that his arrest was perfectly in order, the judge
remarking (at p 478):
He lie Mr Frost or Mr Mole] is perfectly entitled to make a citizen's arrest
and it is a publicly spirited thing to do whether right or wrong, provided
there is reasonable cause to suspect.
However, before the Court of Appeal the point was taken, for the first
time, that the arrest of the appellant had been unlawful, and that
accordingly he had a good defence to the charge under s 38. To see the
background to this we need to examine the relevant statutory provisions.
Store detectives frequently make arrests, but they have no powers to do
so above those
of
the ordinary citizen. Section 24 of the Police and
Criminal Evidence Act 1984 has two subsections dealing with the so-called
'citizen's arrest'. The first is subs (4), which says:
Any person may arrest without a
warrant-
(a) anyone who is in the act of committing an arrestable offence;
• School of Law, Queen's University of Belfast.
IWe are not told why, but presumably the jury believed his story that he had simply
forgotten to pay.
393
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