shop lifting / theft - fixed penalty notice - appealing

mani78 | 10:03 Sun 10th Jan 2010 | Law

1 Answers

hiya,
Has anyone managed to appeal a £80 penalty fine for shop lifting? Also the shop are suing her and she will have to pay costs.

my friend is not sure whether to appeal it or not.
I guess we can see why it would look like she was shop lifting but that wasn't her intention.
She was buying a gift set thing. She had bought one before and there were things missing from it. So this one seemed rather light too so she took some products from another gift set and started putting them inside of the one she wanted. Then she went to pay and left. Then undercover security stopped her and asked her to come back in. She explained she had a receipt and the guy said that she had concealed items in the gift pack and left with out paying for the ones she concealed. We can see how that must of looked bad especially on camera. But really wasn't her intention.

Do you think its worth appealing? Paying is really not a problem when it comes to money, but we are just worried that it will now be on her record. i know it wont be a proper criminal conviction, but it still looks bad especially if someone does a enhanced cbr check. She is 30 and feels so embarrassed about it all. The shop manager was right in saying that she should of asked staff to check if the right amount of products were in the gift set, but she didn't.

should we appeal the penalty notice?
has anyone succeeded in doing this and how did you go about it?
should we appeal the shop suing her?
does this show on a enhanced cbr check?
will this permanently be on her record or does it get removed after a certain about of years?
she does have some mental health problems like ocd, tourette, depression, possible bi-polar, maybe she could use these to go in her favour to appeal?

all answers will be appreciated!! many thanx !!!