At around 10am on 26th September 1969, old age pensioner Thomas Coane stepped into the  Tesco Supermarket at 42 Witton Street, Northwich and, in doing so, became the source of  arcane legal trivia.

It was Mr Coane’s quibbling over the advertised price of Radiant washing  powder that eventually found itself before the House of Lords in the form of Tesco Supermarkets Ltd v Nattrass [1972] AC 153 – the case which has loomed large over the law  of corporate criminal liability ever since.