Theft by finding for waste, really?

Also Tesco should have better control of spoilt food.

Well I would have thought that since it was thrown out by Tesco that Tesco will certainly not claim it so in which case it would be hers.

Oh - that’s Local News! No doubt all the local papers will be over this one.

A lot of supermarkets used to give their expiring food stock to local causes such as soup kitchens, but I'm told that's illegal now.

I can't help thinking there's more to this story. Why would the police go to her house with a battering ram? How was it reported to the authorities in the first place? I know skip raiding isn't exactly legal, but seriously who would give a...?

It looks more like police trying to clear up non existent crimes to boost their performance figures. If she opt for a jury I cannot see them convicting. It might be technically wrong but the goods were abandoned by tesco and clearly not put there by mistake, because of the power cut. So why is anyone chasing this case?

Before throwing the food away, Tesco presumably writes the stock off and its book value becomes £0. In those circumstances she cannot possibly be prosecuted as the items she took have no value whatsoever.

The only way I can see anything like this happening is if she has a friend who works for Tesco and throws out stuff she asks for. Which seems unlikely in this case.

Eh?

The Theft Act 1968 is quite clear:


http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1968/60/section/1

She took something that's the legal property of Tesco, and had no intention of returning it. It's theft, pure and simple.

Can you logically permanently deprive someone of something they've already thrown away? In that case, isn't every binman in Britain guilty of theft pretty much every minute he's doing his job?

Jon

Yes, it's entirely possible to steal something from someone's bin. Unless you have been specifically given something or authorised to take it, it's theft. As for binmen - they're actually covered by the assumed contract between you and the council. If you put your rubbish out to be collected by the council, as soon as it's collected it actually becomes the legal property of the council.

tesco are nazi bastards, evil cretin boss and managers work there who should be shot (in the leg) and be humiliated by being filmed whilst suffering, then whipped by a chain to make sure their pathetic death is not instant

I wish my morals could be so easily aligned with the law. Life would be so much simpler that way. In some ways, I envy Linux_user.

I never said I agreed with it or that it was moral, but this is theft, as defined by the Act.

Fair enough.

Whether the thief gains from the act may well be immaterial, but surely it does matter that somebody must lose out for it to be theft?

If Tesco had already written the value of the goods down to £0 in an official ledger of accounts, which is what I understand all supermarkets do before they bag it up for disposal, then I would query it's legal status as property that could be stolen? The only sense in which it remains property, from my perspective, is that Tesco remains liable for its safe disposal.

There may technically be a crime at some level here, but doesn't it rate somewhere below that of a man who, upon seeing a penny in the street, stops to pick it up (the value of the goods he has illegitimately seized being greater than zero)?