A City lawyer is suing Sainsbury’s for defamation following an incident during which a security guard falsely accused him of shoplifting.

The reported incident took place at a store in Woodchurch Road, Prenton, in June last year, the papers lodged with the High Court in London says.

Andrew Jonathan Milne, who said that a security guard defamed him by calling him a thief and a shoplifter in front of a crowd of dozens of onlookers, is demanding £25,000 in damages. The suit says that as a local to the area, “it is highly likely that many who witnessed the incident recognised him,” adding that “serious harm was caused to his reputation”.

The suit claims: “The volume of the man’s shouting and the nature of the accusations he was making against the claimant attracted the attention of approximately 50 people who were in the vicinity of the doors to the store and the car park and within earshot of the man. It was obvious that the accusations being made by him were directed at the claimant.”

Sainsbury’s accepted that Milne had made a genuine purchase, but said that “no real harm or damage” was done and that the claim is “bound to fail”.

Lawyers for the supermarket said: “There was a social, legal and/or moral duty on the security guard to prevent theft, namely shoplifting.”

They added that there was unlikely to be any continuing reputational harm as a result of the incident as it took place more than a year ago in front of people who were unlikely to know him.

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