Theft from Shops (Hansard, 17 January 1984)

§ Mr. Greville Janner (Leicester, West)

I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to require that all prosecutions for shop theft shall be brought by the police; and for related purposes.

The Bill has two purposes. The first is to end the tragic, inefficient and awful system under which in Greater London and a few other areas the police will not take prosecutions for what they choose to call petty theft. That leaves private people, especially those who run shops, to decide whether or not to prosecute, and to bring prosecutions when they have neither the resources nor the ability to make such decisions in the interests of justice or in a way that is fair to the people involved.

The Bill's second purpose is to ensure that once the power provided by the Bill is used by the police, and only by the police, they shall take steps which are already in operation in several forces, including Leicestershire and Essex. They should seek to ensure that elderly and, especially, ill people and sometimes young people—and those who have not previously committed offences—are not prosecuted when a caution or hospital treatment is society's best response to the commission of an offence which, notably when committed by elderly women, is often a minor form of suicide. Indeed, such cases often lead to suicide.

People in Leicestershire suffered the tragic death of Lady Isabel Barnett. She was a friend of many right hon. and hon. Members. Her case should never have been brought to trial. Instead, she should have received hospital treatment. I am pleased that, since then, the Leicestershire police force has changed its system and now uses its resources properly in an attempt to ensure that people such as her are not prosecuted. I have a list of some 33 people who have recently committed suicide as a result of shoplifting prosecutions. Their names were given to me by Mr. Ken Norman, the organiser of the Portia Trust. I pay tribute to him, to Regina Dollar of Crisis Counselling for Alleged Shoplifters, and to the Samaritans for their work.

We are attempting to take the burden of prosecution away from the shops, which are not in a position to bear it. I am pleased to say that, with reservations, those who represent the retailers, the shops and their associations, support at least part of the Bill. They do not want the burden of prosecution.

I have received a host of replies to my questions from retailers, who say that they wish that the police would take it over. The British Retailers' Association, which represents multiple retailers and department stores, says that the police should take the burden of prosecution for theft and shoplifting. Woolworth's, Sainsbury's, and the Association for the Prevention of Theft in Shops all declare that prosecutions for theft should be instituted by the police, not by shopkeepers.

All those groups and companies have expressed one reservation. They say, with amazing unanimity, that the police have the duty and resources to decide whether to prosecute. If the police decide not to do so, and if the private citizen says that the police have got it wrong, they claim that they should retain the right themselves to prosecute. They would like to hold their stock and to retail it. It is not possible for the burden to be imposed on the police, as it should be, and then for shopkeepers to retain 164 for themselves a residual right of prosecution. The Bill's sponsors, who are in an all-party group, believe that it is the duty of the police to decide whether to prosecute and that they should exercise it properly.

I am pleased to inform the House that the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis has written to me: in principle we are prepared to accept responsibility for all prosecutions of shoplifters".

He adds, quite understandably: there are severe resource and other financial implications arising from this policy. Indeed there are. It is right that the police should be equipped to carry out such duties properly, but surely it is better for the public that the police should have the resources to do the job properly than to have people wrongly brought before the courts. Legal proceedings involve massive expense.

The present system is unjust to traders, and it does not bring people to trial any more frequently than the other system—when they should be brought to trial. It causes tragedy for some of the guilty—and it is not in the interests of justice, especially for those accused who are elderly and infirm. It creates pain, hardship and suffering to innocent people caught up in the extraordinarily difficult world of the self-service store. In a moment of forgetfulness, their lives may be ruined. People are stopped by store detectives, whose spokesmen have said over and again that it is for the courts to decide whether or not an accused is guilty. It is not a matter for the courts to decide at that stage. The question is: should the case go to court?

The accused may have to wait for more than a year before the case comes to court, particularly if he elects for trial by jury. Although awaiting the perils of trial is an occupational hazard for professional criminals, for whom none of us has any brief, awaiting trial is a misery for honest people. They may be found innocent, but only after having faced and endured the trials of coming to trial. Even an acquittal has its miseries. Thousands of them suffer mental hardship and breakdowns, long before their cases are heard. Happily, only a minority of people—a tragic and wretched one none the less—decide that they wish to live no longer as a result of their experience.

This is a modest Bill. It would set aright a peculiarly unhappy and characteristic misery of the modern world of shopping. It has a certain degree of support from shops and traders who, rightly or wrongly, bear the blame, as Woolworth did recently. It has the support of the police, provided that they have the resources, who wish to do well by the community and who recognise that that is part of their job.