Cheeky cheats at the checkout leave us all paying the price

Unexpected monarch in the bagging area! Card or cash? Oops, Her Majesty doesn’t carry either. Is it any wonder the Queen was fascinated by the self-service checkouts at a pop-up Sainsbury’s?

Here, she came across modern life at its most frustrating: a time-saving process in theory that, in practice, involves standing around waiting for a shop assistant to rescue us from the stupidity of smart technology.

She inquired about the honesty of shoppers. Did anyone dare divulge that, in 2017, her loyal subjects stole £3.2billion worth of food from self-service tills?

A favourite fraud involves passing off pricey avocados as cheap carrots.

Speaking of misdemeanours, I’ve just been caught defrauding the NHS, albeit unwittingly.

You know those boxes you can tick on a prescription, giving a reason why you don’t have to pay? Well, somebody somewhere actually checks them.

In fairness, my prepaid certificate had run out. I expect I got a reminder, but official emails are the new scary brown envelopes so I never open them. The upshot is that on Monday I received a penalty charge notice informing me I needed to pay the £8.80 prescription and a fine of £44.

Not nice, but I confess to feeling oddly gratified that the NHS is so diligent. Then a similar letter arrived on Wednesday to cover my other prescription.

I can safely say that, £105.60 later, I now understand that fraud is definitely not a victimless crime.

Back at Sainsbury’s, City recruitment consultant Nicholas Long was found guilty in 2013 of stealing up to £450 of groceries by scanning every item through as loose onions.

That was cheeky. As well as illegal. Nobody likes self-service, even when it works efficiently – but we must fight the temptation to beat the system.

Might I respectfully suggest that security search Her Majesty’s Launer handbag for avocados.