O (who used to work at that Borders) can think of several plausible ways this could have happened. As well as your idea, there is the one someone else suggested, that it was returned to Borders and exchanged for another book - in the post-Christmas "fiesta" of February this might well not have required a Borders receipt, so long as it was a book also carried by Borders. Or, it could have been legitimately returned to Smith's and then returned to the publisher as part of some sale-or-return deal, and then shipped to Borders at a later stage.
Interesting, thanks. I did consider it having been returned to the wrong bookshop, but had discarded the idea because of the receipt problem. I didn't know it was possible that a book returned to Smiths might end up shipped to Borders!
And it's comforting to hear that there's at least one possible explanation which doesn't require me to have been (even unwittingly) a party to (even accidental) theft :-)
No? This suggests otherwise: the offence of handling stolen goods (Theft Act 1968 section 22) requires one to know or believe the goods to be stolen, and R v Hall 1985 clarifies "believe" for these purposes as the state of mind in which you don't know for sure they were stolen but no other explanation makes sense.
It seems clear to me that since two other explanations have been provided in this thread which do make sense and require no theft to have taken place (and which I'd guess are both at least as likely as my accidental theft scenario), I cannot be said to know or believe that the book was stolen and hence I am not guilty of handling even should it turn out to have been.
FWIW (and IANAL), I understand the situation in Germany to be something like this: it's not possible to obtain ownership ("Eigentum", as distinct from "Besitz" or possession) of stolen goods or counterfeit money, and if they are discovered, they will be confiscated and the police don't have to recompense you -- but you are, of course, free to bring suit against the shop that sold you those goods and demand that they give you something of worth in return for the money they took from you (or at least your money back).
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And it's comforting to hear that there's at least one possible explanation which doesn't require me to have been (even unwittingly) a party to (even accidental) theft :-)
It seems clear to me that since two other explanations have been provided in this thread which do make sense and require no theft to have taken place (and which I'd guess are both at least as likely as my accidental theft scenario), I cannot be said to know or believe that the book was stolen and hence I am not guilty of handling even should it turn out to have been.