Food donation trolleys in supermarkets and theft

TheWarmNights

In some supermarkets, they have food donation trolleys. The shops encourage people to buy non-perishable foods, sweets, biscuits etc and leave them in the trolley.

If a person grabbed a bundle of food and dumped them into the collection trolley in the shop and walked out, would that be theft?

In my understanding, it's only theft when you leave the shop with something you haven't paid for and intend to deny the shop ownership of what's rightfully theirs.
A person could easily go to the self service checkout, scan and pay for half of their basket and dump them other half into the collection trolley.

splinter65

If you take property that’s not yours and give it to somebody else then you’ve stolen that property
It’s theft and you’re a thief.

brian_t

TheWarmNights wrote: »

and intend to deny the shop ownership of what's rightfully theirs.

You wrote this in your post and then seemed to ignore it.

Peregrinus

In the old common law days, the theft offence involved "taking and carrying away", with the intention of depriving the owner. The general understanding, then, was that you hadn't committed theft by shoplifting until you actually left the store (which is why it was only at that point that you would be challenged by a security guard). The OP may be thinking that, if you smuggle the goods past the checkout without paying but put them in th donation trolley before leaving the store, you haven't "carried away", and so you haven't committed the offence.

However, the offence is now a statutory offence. Under Criminal Justice (Theft and Fraud Offences) Act 2001 s. 4, "a person is guilty of theft if he or she dishonestly appropriates property without the consent of its owner and with the intention of depriving its owner of it". So taking goods that you haven't paid for and putting them in the donation trolley with the intent that they would then go to a worthy charity would indeed be theft.

Fred Swanson

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seamus

Fred Swanson wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

I agree. Though I'm sure a public order offence could be cooked up for someone engaging in this kind of mischief, which wouldn't need the DPP to be involved.