1 min read
A Tesco ATM has been handing out double the amount of cash asked for. And there have, it seems, been long queues to take advantage. The reports have been all very jolly, and Tesco says that:
'We will not be trying to recover the money.'
Why not? Other than the first few people, who clearly had no idea what was about to happen, every other person in that queue was guilty of theft, pure and simple.
The Theft Act says this:
A person
is guilty of theft if he dishonestly appropriates property belonging to another
with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it.
That is precisely what every one of those people was doing. And even the first few in the queue, who at least did notdeliberately go to the ATM to steal, ought to have returned the extra money which they were given.
Instead of treating the people who took the money as quick-witted quasi-heroes, they should have their faces exposed in the local Tesco with a request for their names, and then prosecuted as the common thieves they are.