Excluded from a Tesco Store

[airbolt]

I am looking for advice on the following situation. I usally stop for a tea or meal at the Tesco Store near me. This has been semi-regular for three years. Today i was marched out of the store by a security man and told " we dont want you here , you're barred ". My "crime" was to take a Sun newspaper from the store to the cafe area. At no stage did i leave Tesco premises and had no intention of taking the paper off the premises. The security guard was aggressive and talked to me as if I was a naughty schoolboy. I was taken to the cafe till to pay with a lot of show - only to be told i couldnt pay there. I was then told that i was going to be escorted to another till. This was done with deliberate humiliation . I put the paper down and said i had had enough of being treated like this. At this point he talked into his radio saying " keep a camera on me , i am escorting someone from the premises" . I was escorted from the shop. I was very upset and humiliated. I think this was out of proportion and I was not given a chance to speak to the store manager.

I offered no aggression and was actually in tears when i was escorted off the premises. I'm still very upset and was wondering where i stand legally?

[FPY]

Joko is an insensitive excuse for a human being,.

"How would the store guard know anything about your personal circumstances?
why exactly is that relevant here?
if you were distraught and did something out of character, they may have been able to tell and offered to call someone to pick you , but after 3 years, i don't imagine you are not in your right mind, and behaving like a person in shock."

Joko - have you been bereaved? And don't fib about how your entire family died in a fire.

[scoobydooby]

I've been reading this for two days now and it's getting on my nerves. No-one should help themselves to goods in a shop and use them without paying. It's likely that this is happening on a regular basis (perhaps even by the same people) and the store have decided enough is enough.

Lets look at this a bit differently........what would you all be saying if Tesco's had decided to prosecute? Would it be 'That's harsh, they could have simply banned him from the store - why take him to court?'

The fact is, Tesco's had decided not to prosecute and the gentleman has been let off lightly.

C'mon guys positive - not negative thinking - it could be worse!

[FPY]

Scoobydooby - you've heard the gentleman's -woman's -
( I don't think we know the gender) account?
I just wish people hear could show some basic human sympathy - I too have been harrassed when people didn't really usderstand the cause - e.g.a landlord attacking me for lack of cleanliness, when I too had been recently bereaved and was finding things in general very difficult to cope with.

[joko]

FPY - get a grip and grow up. i am stating facts.
this is not sympathybank.

while obviously i am sorry to hear of airbolts loss, he/she wants answers and we are giving them, not just cooing ''oh poor you''!!

How would the store guard know and be able to understand airbolts personal circumstances?
do you really expect a security guard to have that on his mind when dealing with an unwelcome customer?
unless airbolt told the guard his circumstances, why would he even think about it?
yes, its sad that airbolt has lost his daily bit of pleasure, but by the sounds of it, he did this more than once and they saw him and had had enough.
i understand people behave out of character when they have been recently bereaved - but please explain to me how you expect the guard to know that?
do you think he should ask every shoplifter if they have been bereaved, and then let them off because of it?
do you think he should become a trained counsellor in order to spot the signs?
do you think he should believe every single one of them?
if word got out that thats all you had to say to get away with shoplifting there would chaos.

of course i have been bereaved - but i don't go helping myself to things in shops and expect to get away with it - 3 YEARS LATER!!

the bereavement airbolt has suffered is a reason, not an excuse, it does not make the crime ok, just gives mitigating circumstances.
however, in court, 3 years later, may not be considered acceptable for peoples minds to still be ''in shock'' - its a long time!!
that is not ''recently bereaved''.

[FPY]

God jocko you're such a dull heartless person - I couldn't even get a third of the way through your tedium. Please s** off and stop pretending to "care about people but ,,,"

[joko]

i am not ''pretending to care about anyone'' you fool - i don't care especially !! certainly no more than i care about my fellow man in general.
its an awful thing that has happened to him, but i won't lose any sleep over it, and will have forgotten about it in a day or two - are you suggesting you care deeply about airbolt and that he can't go to tescos anymore?
if so you are a liar.
i don't know airbolt - and neither do you!

you will also note that most people felt the same way as me, so if you are singling me out because i didn't use flowery language as though talking to a child, and just said it straight, that rather shows your lack of intellect and knee-jerk reaction personality.

the fact that you admit you cannot even read anything that is not written in simple terms, rather tells me that your opinion is hardly one to be taken seriously, especially since you have failed to create a proper argument to back up your hostility.

your opinion of me is not only irrelevant, it is unwanted and not in the least bit interesting.
it is was not asked for and is not required.
you don't count.
you don't matter.

[JimT]

Yeah I think airbolt was wrong to take the paper away from the sales area. The security guard seems to have been a tad heavy-handed in dealing with it, and airbolt could perhaps have been given the chance to pay and stay rather than be barred outright, but the magazine and newspaper racks of any shop aren't supposed to be a library.

Sorry to sound cynical but if Tesco provided free papers in their cafe, as suggested, I couldn't see them lasting. People would just walk off with them.

airbolt if you're still reading this, bereavement and unemployment are tough things to deal with and if you don't normally do anything wrong your experience must have felt (and still feel) very harsh. Write a polite articulate letter to the store manager admitting the mistake but expressing the view that the guard's actions were disproportionate and humiliating, but that as a regular customer who doesn't normally do anything wrong you would like the ban to be lifted. But don't get your hopes up too high - I agree with the earlier comment that the manager probably won't agree. However, do the letter anyway and shut the door on this one and move on.

[redhead23]

thank u onneee x

[Dingerbell4]

I would take the view that as long as you havn't done the crossword and the "name-game", and put it back in the rack neatly folded,then you havn't "defiled the newspaper (not that the "Sun" is a newspaper !

[amonty1144]

sorry to hear of your experience, in the first instance removing the newspaper to the cafe is wrong but it would appear that the behaviour of the security guard is out of proportion to the 'crime'

I wish to comment on this:
"but after 3 years, i don't imagine you are not in your right mind, and behaving like a person in shock. "

that statement is very definitely wrong, bereavement and any other trauma can last for a very considerable time. Everyone's mind heals at a different pace, sometimes never. Perhaps airbolt, you need to look for some professional support.

I'm a professional person and have worked in the mental health field, this bit is just to show I can hold down a good job. My problem is that 7 years ago I was diagnosed with ptsd, i can do most things but financial matters set off panic attacks. My three years are up, perhaps I should be better now!
Give airbolt a bit of space, please

[samuel23]

How bl00dy disgusting is that? I can completely understand your anger and humiliation. How ? Let me explain what happened to me last Thursday in my local Tescos (in Kent.) and if anyone reading this is a youngish lady with a red shoulder bag and about half a dozen M & S bags ~ I'm sorry that I split your coffee.
Near this store is a trading estate and on it is the garage I use. As my car was in for service I decided to have breakfast in the Tescos cafe.
Before I went into the cafe I brought a paper from the store. Sitting there in the middle of the cafe doing the crossword, a security guard came over to my table and in a loud voice said 'Give me that paper'. He then grabbed the paper and started shouting that I was defacing store property by writing on it. I was so stunned I just gawped at him for a few seconds. By the time I'd found my wits and snatched the paper back he'd told me he was 'having me removed'. I told him to f**k off in no uncertain terms and, as I'm just over 6' and nearly 16st, he looked a bit silly when I stood up and told him to try it. He came back a couple of minutes later with the deputy store manager (dunno why the proper manager didn't show up). This guy told me he was calling the police if I didn't leave. I asked him why and he said I'd threatened and intimidated the security guard. WTF?
At no point did he ask if the paper was mine, at no point did he ask for my version of events and at no time did the stupid twonk at the cash desk tell him I'd come in with the paper.
After showing him the receipt and threatening to report the security guard for abusive behaviour this guy told me I was going to be banned from all Tescos stores.
I phoned their head office and they are sending someone to 'talk to me about this misunderstanding'
B0ll0cks to them ~ I've already decided I'll never go back in their stores again.