Woman Arrested After Taking Thrown Out Food

reply to post by Ironclad


I am glad I privately contract my garbage disposal services with pickup being on my property(meaning if even a private-eye snooped = jail for trespassing) . That being said, so many liability issue's could be solved if we just brought back the old tradition of dueling.....

reply to post by LargeFries

food was tossed after a power cutoff = spoiled food.

was this supposed to be a joke?

most food does not spoil that quickly unless it was stored improperly.
power outages are a frequent occurrence here and perishable foods are manageable for days if stored correctly.

Unfort aslong the food is still on the owners ground - ie in the bins around the back of the store, it until taken off site by refuse collectors is still the shops property and responsibility and as such the same theft laws apply as if the items were on the shelves.
Thats the law im afraid.. Unlucky on her part for being caught.

Can i point out also, she did take these items during a powercut and thus taking an advantage of a situation, thus points to premeditation of the theft.

reply to post by FreeSpeaker


so yer company too has that dof in the manger attitude towards those who have the need and the energy to recycle and reuse what is useable?
Everywhere it is the same attitude these days, nobody gets nothing for free....
Everyone has to pay for even the garbage....
Is there no end to the extended possession we feel for our garbage?
how far down the chaain must it go?
Even the garbage dumps do not allow people to pick up discarded items....
if you see some perfectly good iten going to waste, you have to steal it from the dump!
Its called dumplifting i believe its a poor persons crime....

reply to post by DimensionalDetective


'Theft by finding' eh?

A legal responsibility to hand into the police anything which has been found on the street, which may belong to someone else...words to that effect anyway.

OK...an idea for direct action...*peaceful* direct action, for all of you with a militant type of personality...

Everyone go out into the street, armed with a small tupperware container (plastic food tub) and scoop up the first large dog turd you come across.

Take it along to your local police station, and state; "Hello officer...upon reading the article in today's edition of 'The Daily Mail', i noticed we, the public can be arrested and charged with theft by finding, if we find something which we do not hand into the police...well, here you go, i found this dog turd, and thought i'd better hand it in in case the dog owner is looking for it, and i didn't want to be accused of theft for finding it"!

Or words to that effect..."found this spoon sir!" might also work, but the turd has the added WTF appeal.

Then we'll get to see how much they really want to enforce an outdated and 'technical law'.

For those interested in more 'technical laws', and wish to give the police a finger as it were...know here, that it is *still* perfectly legal for an individual, to pull his car or vehicle (law states cart - it's that old), get out (or off) and 'relieve' himself against the back wheel of your vehicle.

It's actually legal for you to do this, it's an old law that goes back hundreds of years.

As LONG as you own the vehicle..urinate ONLY against one of the rear wheels...it's perfectly legal to do this (technically) in a crowded high street on a Saturday morning if you wanted to.

There are LOTS and lots of such outdated and rarely if ever used laws still on the books.

I say we learn them, and put them into practice as a form of non violent protest against this sort of police numbskullery.

Arresting someone for taking *dumped* food from the street indeed!!

If anything, the arse should have arrested the Tesco manager, for littering and creating a public health hazard, by allowing food to rot on the street.

Play them at their own game...and see how long they still want to 'play'!

Its a sad commentary on just how sick and depraved a society has become when people would rather have a bin full of perfectly good food go to rot in a trash bin than to allow a hungry woman to take it in order to feed herself and possibly her family.

Every day it seems humanity sinks a little further down into the abyss. Im not a religious man, but I believe if there is a just and vengeful God out there, then Hell will surely one day soon be over booked.

Wow. Theft by Finding, they made that up right? Right?? I wonder what else the TPTB are gonna throw at us next. They say that the UK £ is getting better but many are still jobless. And at 21? Even Tesco can't have a freaking heart to care about this woman. It's all business to them.

No better here in Australia. The supermarket chains are having a price war over milk. AU$1/1L of milk. MILK!

£3000 worth of food!!!! You would need a lorry to cart that back home. A Full trolley is £100 to give you an idea of what she was taking.

Imagine If she sold the meat to a local restaurant/curry house and you were ill. I am sure you would complain then.

mostly boils down to where the bins where and who owns the bins and its content,

some 10 years ago i could go to the local kindergarden and ask em for the left overs of the day so i could feed it to my dogs , now days its classified as biological waste and must be handled as such , bit sad , ..

one thing that bothers me with the article in question ,

what was she gonna do with 3k worth of (spoiled?) food ?

Originally posted by evoga
£3000 worth of food!!!! You would need a lorry to cart that back home. A Full trolley is £100 to give you an idea of what she was taking.

Imagine If she sold the meat to a local restaurant/curry house and you were ill. I am sure you would complain then.

I agree with this £3000 pounds worth of food is a shocking amount. To give you an idea of how much food that is my monthly food budget is around £300 for a family of 4 including buying nappies.

If she was taking enough for even a weeks worth of meals it would be a lot. Also its not unheard of for unreputable corner stores, chinese, indian restaruants from using or selling out of date products so if she sold it on then there could be a lot of sick people in her area.

In saying that if it was abandoned by the store and she did not sell any of it then I have no problem with it.

Theft by finding is as bad as the UK's mines royal act or the treasure trove act they should all be removed as laws.

I've posted before (i think) about going with a friend to a supermarkets bins and watching him pull out completely unopened boxes of food that are still in date. The amount of food supermarkets throw away is a disgrace and when someone decides to utilize that waste they are put on trial, what the hell is going on!?

I know she was tressspassing and ok you can easily arrest her for that one, but to prosecute her for taking something that was being thrown out, something which had no financial value to the company seems utterly stupid. This is a waste of police time, a waste of the courts time and worst of all it will destroy her life to have that conviction on her record.

reply to post by DimensionalDetective


I once worked in a nursing facility where if there was food left over in the kitchen it was tossed out. Staff were not allowed to take it, or even purchase it. "Regulations" had to be followed, and hence, the food was tossed. This is hardly on the same level as the OP story, but a similar situation. I never understood that.

Remember in the Grapes of wrath and all that food was wasted, same kinda thing, if you're poor then feck off , you don't deserve even our unwanted food , well we all know the old saying what goes around comes around..

reply to post by DimensionalDetective


I don't know what to say, there's sooo much food that goes to waste from restaurants, schools, stores either because people took more food than they could eat, didn't like it or because the food just got too old.

When I worked at this chocolate factory, the ''faulty'' chocolate pieces would be singled out in tonnes and later be sold to farms to feed pigs.

So I guess Tesco considers this as violation of their property, regardless to if they no longer need it for sales. What was she really charged over???

What does the law say over this? Can she consult a lawyer over this?

Here's an article dated way back in 1998, apparently they are scared of the food being off and giving food poisoning but also says a proportion of stores do actively provide a food scheme for charity for food that's thrown out, why not every store though? www.independent.co.uk...


Also, let's not forget the fresh food mountains stored that are purposely destroyed to maintain pricing by the E.U, Tesco's actions are angelic in comparison.

Ha! When i was a youngster, I held a job at some sh*tty fast-food joint (as many kids do). Every evening, the manager would count and weigh the food products that were 'mess-ups,' and then throw them away inside a garbage bin, under lock and key, and no one could appropriate them for any reason (my reasoning is that if food waste is such a problem, then why waste it? give it to someone in need, for the love of God!).
I eventually left that hell-hole as I was working the fry-line one day, and had helped myself to a curly-fry (oh, they were just so tempting!). Later that evening, a manager approached me and told me that a coworker had reported to her that I had eaten on the line (oh dear!). She promptly informed me that the company considered this 'theft,' and that she would be 'obligated to call the police' if anything of the sort happened again. I outright laughed in her face and asked her if she was joking. She informed me that she was 'as serious as a heart attack,' and asked if I would like the police to be called at that moment. I replied that she could do so if she liked and that I was terminating my employment then and there. Needless to say, the look on her face was priceless, as I'm certain that she'd encountered this 'problem' countless times in the past and had undoubtedly delighted in holding such petty power over others; to see her false sense of authority crumble before my eyes was one of the most funniest and empowering things I've ever witnessed!
The restaurant was Arby's and of course, I wouldn't recommend dining there.
One more quick story: About a week before the incident mentioned above, I was told that all employees working the cash register were to remain at their workspace for the duration of their shift, unless they had informed a manager of their momentary absence (to take a piss or whatever). As it happens, I was working the cash register one afternoon, and the lunch-rush had dissipated; there was no one in the restaurant. Three cash register attendees were on the line, including myself, and we were all standing around with our thumbs in our as*es, so to speak. I decided that I needed to relieve myself, so I left to go to the restroom. When I came back, the general manager took me aside and explained to me that I was to always ask permission before I leave my register (as though I was a f*cking prisoner) and that 'all managers have the key to unlock any register.' I was puzzled by her approach and asked her what she was implying. She hushed her voice and told me that she 'would have no problem unlocking my register to withdrawal money from my drawer' and have me take the fall for it. Of course, I turned white as a ghost, wondering how such people without any integrity fall into these positions of power (however petty such 'power' really is); I was taken so aback that I found myself frozen and speech less and resigned myself to finish the remaining hour of my shift.
That was over 15 years ago, and I sometimes entertain the fantasy of how I could approach those scenarios with the knowledge and legal experience I have obtained since my years in University. It is with dread that I fear that so many teenagers deal with the same bullsh!t even today, and haven't the knowledge or constitution to deal with such irrationality upfront, and directly.
I apologize for the long post; the information contained in the OP helped to resurface some interesting memories of which perhaps you all may make good use.
xox (and best of luck to the 'thief!')

Here in the States the big clothing companies actually do stuff like BURN all the leftover clothes they couldn't sell, because if they just gave them away to people who couldn't afford them and actually NEEDED them, then they would lose their VALUE. I mean, who the hell wants to pay 1000 bucks for a shirt that some homeless lady is wearing on 5th Avenue? (Yes, I'm throwing in sarcasm here but the truth is this kind of thing REALLY DOES GO ON, and has been for YEARS). Google It.

reply to post by DimensionalDetective


its the same if you take something out of a skip, it counts as theft in the uk. i live behind a coop and my mate used to go through the bins nearly ever night. some of the stuff he got was amazing. even got beer some times.
thats until the kids clicked on and were going through the bins just for the beer, the coop now empties the beer bottles now lol. the coop gets people going through the bins nearly ever night, so people even bring there own shopping bags lol. people even turn up in cars.
i think they should be allowed if they ask permission first. its just such a waste otherwise

reply to post by speedmaster


i had never heard of theft be finding until i watched a cop show the other night. some drunk had found an office chair and was just walking up the street with it. the cops turned up and made him take it back to where he found it. i dont remember if he got arrested for it. thats the first time i had ever heard of theft by finding

Truly disgraceful.
In the county in which I live there is a non-profit that actually does this because so much food is simply tossed. They have even partnered with some local grocers.

It was founded by the owners of Zingerman’s Delicatessen, a nationally renown local Deli that's appeared on the cover of Gourmet Magazine:

Food Gatherers

Why We’re Here
Food Gatherers exists to alleviate hunger and eliminate its causes in our community by: reducing food waste through the rescue and distribution of food; coordinating with other hunger relief providers; educating the public about hunger; and developing new food resources. In 2010, we distributed 5 million pounds of food to 164 non-profit programs.

How did Food Gatherers come about?
Food Gatherers is not only Michigan’s first food rescue program, but the first program of its kind to be founded by a for-profit business, our own Zingerman’s Delicatessen. In 1997, Food Gatherers also assumed responsibility for the county food bank. Today, it is an independent 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization governed by a board of directors and operated by 19 staff people and more than 5,000 different dedicated volunteers. Food Gatherers is now the primary distributor of food in Washtenaw County.

Where does all that food come from?
We glean surplus food from more than 300 sources including restaurants like Tio’s Southwestern Cafe, food retailers like Busch’s Fresh Food Markets, food wholesalers like Gordon’s Food Service and University of Michigan dormitories. Our association with The Food Bank Council of Michigan connects us to statewide food donations, and through Feeding America—the national network of food banks—we are connected to large corporate donors such as Kraft, ConAgra and Kellogg. Then there are people like you who donate canned items, food from gardens, dry goods and money. Food Gatherers exists because of the caring and generosity of many individuals in the community!

Where does the food go?
Food Gatherers provides enough food for more than 10,000 meals a day. Food Gatherers brings the food to more than 164 community programs serving our neighbors - mostly families and children - in need of food. The agencies receiving our food include St. Andrews Breakfast Program, Dawn Farm, Salvation Army, SOS Community Services and Hope Clinic.
www.foodgatherers.org...