Follow on from Sainsbury's

Thanks for all your emails regarding the incident at Sainsbury’s, it’s nice to know the Blog is actually being read by people. Some as far away as America and believe it or not Russia.

The comment “we expect this from the police here, not from kind englishmen” was telling. Ok, the writer has never been to the UK, but it seems we have a good reputation in Russia, which is nice to know.

In the Manager’s Office

Something just occurred to me. When the manager took me into the side office, he seemed to want me to agree that I was asked to go back into the store and went voluntarily. This makes me wonder if there is some legal nicety that was overlooked by Sainsbury’s.

It’s not ‘asking’ if you are grabbed and told to come back inside. The manager just didn’t grok this and kept insisting I had been asked to come back inside. This is total crap, if you’re asked it implies you have a choice. “Would you like to come back inside?” “Errr, no thanks, bye”. It did seem to be important to him that I had been asked. It’s not asking if the only acceptable answer is ‘yes’ and you are then forced. That is an arrest, an illegal arrest in this case and unlawful imprisonment. If a policeman had behaved in the same way I’d be making a complaint to a senior officer by now.

Assault by Sainsbury's

On Thursday 25 May I was between ‘meetings’ and walked over to my local Sainsbury’s store to purchase a bottle of champagne for one of my clients who was retiring the next day. I was expecting to be gone about 20 minutes or so before having to start work again.

I swung by the “end of shelf life” section and picked up a couple of quiches on the way to the wine section, and chose a bottle of Lanson then carrying my shopping to one of the Quick Sale tills at the end of the row of checkouts. Paid for my stuff with my cash-point card, shoved the Sainsbury’s plastic bag into my rucksack and headed out back to work.


Our local Sainsbury's Store Horsham

When I went out through the exit, there were about ½ dozen people milling around going in and out (Is Thursday still pension day? They all seemed to be quite elderly), and I walked out hearing a beep-beep sound and glancing behind saw the lights flashing on the sensor barriers but kept walking (I really did have to get back to work, and didn’t want to get involved in a fight with a shoplifter). I got out into the car park intending to walk through the car park and back home when I was grabbed by my wrist having my arm and shoulder twisted and jerked back. There was a member of Sainsbury’s security staff yelling at me “Oi! Come back inside”. ??WTF??


Where I was assaulted by their staff under the porch

There were a number of things he could have done such as approach me quietly saying something like “Excuse me sir. I think we’ve left a security tag on your shopping, would you mind coming back in so it can be deactivated?”. Instead he chose to assault me, in public, in a humiliating way.

Naturally I resisted this ‘approach’ and was yelling “Get off me you little shit” (well he was only about 5’4”) he just kept trying to drag me by my wrist back into the store yelling at me “Little shit? You think I’m a little shit? You’re a big shit!” and threatening me “Go on, hit me so I can punch you. Big shit”. Is this REALLY how Sainsbury’s train their staff to address a member of their clientele?

Eventually, an off duty copper came along and broke up the fight, and reluctantly I went along inside the store with him and a couple of other staff. The security guard was continuing to insult me (“Big shit” etc).

From where I was assaulted looking into the store

When I asked “is this an acceptable way for your staff to address a customer?”.
A couple of the other staff looked at each other “I didn’t hear anything. Did you?
“No, I didn’t hear a thing”.

What a disgusting attitude for Sainsbury’s staff to take. Of course they heard.

I attempted to leave the store a couple of times and the security guard and a couple of other staff moved to block my exit and prevented me from leaving (unlawful arrest and detention?). Eventually – when the mouthy security bod wandered off – I went with the assistant manager to a small office and threw the receipt at him showing I had paid for the goods.

I was then allowed to leave the store and the mouthy security guard was STILL insulting me as I left.

I examined my shopping later in the day, and there was indeed one of these coiled security tags stuck to the bottle of champagne that the till operator had (I guess) not deactivated. The entire incident smacks of lack of staff training.

Not only was I assaulted both verbally and physically for helping to increase Sainsbury’s already vast profits (no, not really – and there is no wonder their profits are so small) but the entire incident was because of Sainsbury’s cock-up in the first place. None of this should ever have happened.

I’ll spend my hard-earned money in Waitrose from now on I think, even if it is the other side of town. I have never had anything but first-class service from them, wonderfully polite staff, and staff who know what they are selling. Oh, and as a bonus, I’ve never had more than one person in front of me in the queues for the tills either.

The only reason I used Sainsbury’s in the first place is that it’s a 5 minute walk from where I live, now I'll get more exercise at least.