Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Chat

Join the discussion and chat with other Mumsnetters about everyday life, relationships and parenting.

Original poster

Would you help cover up a crime allegedly committed by a family member?

68 replies

Lolaandbehold · 25/03/2024 21:18

I’m watching a Swedish drama on Netflix at the moment. A daughter has been accused of murder and her mother has (unbeknownst to her) disposed of some evidence (clothes and knife).

I went down a rabbit hole of thoughts on the matter.

i have no known family members who have ever had any dealings with the law so this is very much a hypothetical musing. (Do watch my fair share of crime dramas however). It got me thinking, If it were one of my offspring, I don’t think I would think twice about helping to cover it up/disposing of evidence. Even if it meant that down the line I got charged with perverting the course of justice. Although I suppose it depends on what the crime was and against whom it was perpetrated.

I’m wondering if I’m in the minority here, so I’m curious on what others would do…

OP posts:
tellmewhenthespaceshiplandscoz · 26/03/2024 09:11

Waitingfordoggo · 25/03/2024 21:24

Plus my perimeno brain fog would make it difficult for me to lie because the next time they interviewed me, I wouldn’t be able to remember what I’d said the time before 😂

Edited

God absolutely this Grin

tellmewhenthespaceshiplandscoz · 26/03/2024 09:12

Saddm · 25/03/2024 21:26

Sadly I was the one to ring the police. Haven't seen dc since their trial over a decade ago... Until you are in the position honestly you have no idea how you would deal with it....
Sincerely hope you never do..
😰

I'm sorry, that's so awful.
Apologies my earlier post seems in poor taste now Flowers

IvorTheEngineDriver · 26/03/2024 09:35

No. I would grass them up in an instant and be happy to do so. But then I'm NC with virtually all of them.

Trystand · 26/03/2024 12:06

NCForQuestions · 26/03/2024 08:57

Absolutely fucking not. I'm ex police and believe justice must not be interfered with.

I agree with a PP on one element - self defence by someone leading to a terrible injury or death would be someone I would support, but there is still a legal process that person has to go through in order to be cleared. They have to face up to what happened, not run away from it or it'll just get worse and less defensible.

I've helped pull a couple of suspected murderers out of lofts and crawl spaces. I've arrested women for covering up for their friends or partners for drug dealing and laundering the money for them. I've also been the officer lying in the road with a dying teenager trying to keep them alive long enough to get into surgery while the driver of the car who hit him tried to run away (picked up by a colleague down the road).

Most people when confronted with the consequences of their own actions are cowards. I will not enable that. And the people who assist them are cowards as well.

There's a victim on the end of all violent crime. If the child or family member you're all so desperate to cover up for was actually the victim of that violence, I assume you'd be OK with the perpetrators family and friends hiding them, disposing of the evidence and lying to give them alibis? Because that's what lots of you are advocating for.

Did the teenager make it?

NCForQuestions · 26/03/2024 12:23

Unfortunately not @Trystand .

We at least managed to get his family to the hospital in time to say goodbye. Unsurvivable head injury amongst many many other injuries.

The driver of the car went to prison - they had been racing another car off the lights 100m away from the pedestrian crossing.

From my personal side, I've never had a headache like the one I had after that shift and I have huge migraine problems. That boy very much still lives in my head 18 years later.

People who can't take responsibility for their actions are the lowest in society whether it's stealing a packet of sweets or stabbing someone. Fess up. Accept what you did. Get it over with. It isn't going away. I wouldn't phone 999 if DH stole sweets, but I'd think far the lesser of him. I'd dob him in in an instant if he maimed or killed someone.

VikingLady · 26/03/2024 13:53

wafflesmgee · 26/03/2024 08:12

No I wouldn't help them cover up. The law is the law, yes there are reasons ppl are driven to murder but I'd expect them to own it and face the consequences.

All posters who say they would cover up based on certain circumstances, how would you believe them? Eg if your child says "I killed them but they were a baddie and it was self defense?"
I'd be like errrrm, you KILLED them?! Maybe I won't believe everything you are telling me right now?!? 😄

I know my kids and I can tell when they're lying, plus I know their likely motivations and the circumstances. Likewise immediate family. If my mum killed her husband I'd help hide it, but if my brother killed his wife I wouldn't, generally speaking. Because I know enough about their relationships and personalities to judge whether they were truly in the wrong, whether getting away with it would make them a future risk, whether I'd turn myself into a future victim because I knew too much etc.

I'd absolutely help my DD with a future abusive partner if I couldn't help her get away.

Pocketfullofdogtreats · 26/03/2024 14:08

It would depend. If they nicked clothes from H&M I would march them back there and make them give them back and say it was accidental. But a repeat of it, or something serious, no way would I cover it up, but I'd support them through the justice process.
Actually DS did something stupid against his friend recently. It wasn't a crime, but extremely bad judgement. He said his friend was upset and asked my opinion and I told him if I were the friend I'd block him. He admitted his stupidity to the friend, asked for forgiveness, and the friend forgave him :)

dancerdog · 26/03/2024 16:01

I know my kids and I can tell when they're lying

Me too. So imagine my surprise when my son, who promised he did not do drugs, turned up injured in a hospital, handcuffed to a trolley, with 2 police officers there, after committing criminal damage during an episode on speed.

My point is, people don't always tell the truth.

But generally, I am a bit alarmed at the amount of people who know their child would only ever have a good and noble reason for doing something wrong.

KaitlynFairchild · 26/03/2024 16:06

Most of my family, no chance.

My sister's babies? Absolutely. That is the point of having a doting aunt, that and buying them stuff.

Saddm · 26/03/2024 16:07

I promise you it isn't true you can tell when your dc are lying....

LaCerbiatta · 26/03/2024 17:11

Lolaandbehold · 26/03/2024 09:03

Sorry, A Nearly Normal Family!

Thank you!

VikingLady · 27/03/2024 01:46

Saddm · 26/03/2024 16:07

I promise you it isn't true you can tell when your dc are lying....

Mine are autistic and have neither got the hang of lying nor of keeping their mouths shut. But I take your point.

Mum1976Mum · 27/03/2024 01:52

DH I would protect him from most things - fraud, burglary etc. Murder in cold blood, sex crimes - nope

Children I would 100% cover for them no matter what they done!

Oblomov24 · 27/03/2024 05:50

I'd help them cover it up, put the bloody knife in the dishwasher, put the bloody clothes in with the other stuff in a load of washing.

Beezknees · 27/03/2024 06:51

🤨 at these replies. I hope that you'd all be prepared to expect the same if you were a victim of crime. No wonder so many children get away with being brats these days.

Lurkingandlearning · 27/03/2024 06:57

AlohaOptima · 25/03/2024 21:22

Totally depends what the crime was and why.

My ex husband thought it would be funny once to phone his friend and play a prank on him telling him that he had killed me accidentally during a row. The friend was shook up but was ready to come over and help him. I was absolutely chilled, more so because my ex husband was abusive and accidentally killing me wasn’t a huge leap!

I’m going off topic for a moment…. To me that’s a new low on the shitty things some men do.

Back to OPs question.

As much as I would like to cover up a murder my child committed in self-defence, unless I was 💯 sure it would work I wouldn’t do it. My sources are only TV too and when a cover up is rooted out by the police it always seems to put self defence in doubt and make things worse.

sashh · 27/03/2024 07:56

I think it depends on a multitude of thing. From what the crime is, to the circumstances the individual is in / was in and the consequences.

Does anyone remember Bob in ER? I know that is fiction but would anyone here report Bob?

The situation in ER is that every Dr is busy with patients in cardiac arrest or other serious issues so they cannot be left.

Bob is the desk clark and realises that a patient has a triple A. Bob performs the surgery which saves the person's life.

It turns out that Bob was a surgeon in Poland, but isn't legally able to practice until she has passed a board exam.

Whatifthehokeycokey · 27/03/2024 08:59

I think it's hard to know how you would react until you're in that situation. There are plenty of examples of mothers going to great lengths to protect their sons, giving them alibis etc.

New posts on this thread. Refresh page