Man admits incorrectly scanning apples as carrots

A 53-year-old man has pleaded guilty to charges of false representation after he was caught putting apples through a supermarket self-scanner and registering them as carrots.

The Tesco Direct website lists Granny Smith apples at £2 per kilo, and carrots at 60p per kilo.

Aidan Martin Devlin, 53, carried out the scam on several occasions at the Newtownbreda branch of Tesco.

He admitted 12 charges at Newtownards Magistrates Court last Friday, while a 13 further charges of fraud were withdrawn. Sentencing is scheduled to take place in four weeks time.

District Judge White told Devlin to co-operate with the Probation Board, saying: “If you do as you are asked and provide them with the information they require, then it is likely the court will follow their recommendation.”

• A recent report by criminologists at the University of Leicester found that the cost to a supermarket of stolen items more than doubles after it introduces of self-scanning.

Researchers found that people who are usually honest resort to theft simply because they can, and do not feel it is as wrong when there is no human interaction.

Self-checkouts were found to provoke aggressive behaviour particularly when products would not scan correctly, or when staff had to intervene to over-ride faults or check age verifications.

Giving customers the freedom to self-scan also gives them the opportunity to blame faulty technology, problems with the product barcodes or claim that they are not technically proficient as reasons for non-scanning, said the report.

Co-author Dr Matt Hopkins said: “All innovations in retailing are a business choice – hopefully done to make the shopper happier and the business more profitable.

“But those same choices can also produce negative outcomes as well, such as increased opportunities for losses to occur.

“Retailers are becoming aware of these problems and introducing ways of ‘amplifying’ risk in the mobile scan and pay environment, trying to ensure that all that ends up in the basket also makes it onto the receipt.”

Some supermarkets now carry out random audit checks and technology is being developed to tag items so that they set off alarms if they have not been scanned.