Or petty to report this to the police.

[Confuzzeled]

IMO theft is theft.

A woman I know has worked really hard to start a toddler / baby group at the local church halls. She has spent allot of time raising funds to buy decent toys and safety equiptment for the group. It's a great group she makes such an effort, does snacks, sings nursery songs and reads stories, not to mention she makes tea and coffee for all the mums.

So since ds has grown out of his baby swing, it cost £65 new I decided to donate it to the group. I dropped it off on the Tuesday and it was stolen on the Wednesday.

On Wednesday there is another toddler group run by another woman, the groups share a cupboard to store the toys. This woman apparently had to leave the group early and one of the mums claimed the swing was hers and left with it.

So some of the other mums must have seen her walking out with it. Would it be petty to report it to the Police? I don't know how keep the woman who runs the other group is to confront this thief. My friend would report it to the Police but the church is not keen for her to do so. My friend does pay them for rent of the hall, the storage space and insurance so I think they have a responsibility to her.

Don't know if I'm being petty and angry as I'm crazy hormonal at the moment.

I would put a notice up saying unless the swing is returned it will be reported to the police as a theft.

Hopefully she'll then be shamed into returning it.

I think your idea is a good one traceybath.

Yes print out an 'incident' poster and ask for it to be returned by the 15th or it will be reported as stolen.

Are you sure the group organiser didn't lend the swing to this Lady?
x

Not petty, its very annoying. I would do as the others suggest, but check that it hasn't been officially lent out by someone. Yes I would mention the police in a poster on the door (and another inside) and wait and see. Good luck.

Does anyone know where she lives? If they do, you should put a note through her door asking her to phone the co-ordinator about the baby swing. In the note you could perhaphs offer her the loan of it for a bit if she really needs to try one - you don't know, she could be at the end of her tether with a screaming baby and you might just be offering her a lifeline. Clearly what she did was very wrong, but severe sleep deprivation and/or PND can drive you over the brink of 'normal' behavior. Advise her that if you don't hear from her you will consider it theft and report it to the police.

If on the other hand it's a toddlers swing - just report her to the police.

I guess if she's that bothered about the church you could give them a week to either recover it replace it first?

If your friends rent includes payments towards insurance, after trying to recover the swing(I like the idea of the posters)could she/is she planning on making a claim? I really think she should unless the excess outweighs the 'worth' of the swing, but a babyswing is not a cheap item so I think it should be claimed back.
However i'm pretty sure the insurance company would require a crime reference number to claim after a theft, and obviously you would have to report the theft to the police to get that.

If the church are so unwilling for your friend or you to report this to the police what do they plan to do? Are THEY personally going to replace it? Are they going to reimburse you or your friend?

I would be quite upset as we've kept things like babyswings and stuff, but we lend them out to friends and family now they arent being used. On the understanding that they are returned or replaced should it be damaged(or fixed) if and when we have anymore children, our swing did cost my Dad £180quid though, but even so i'd be pretty pissed if i lost £65 so its no different

Good luck x

The group organiser said that she had to leave early and once she'd left one of the Mums picked it up and walked out. Maybe there was some misunderstanding but either way it wasn't the organisers swing to lend anyway. If it was borrowed for a week then it should have been back this week.

I agree with the incident posters, I'll tell my friend about that idea.

Personally I'd like to get the phone number of the Mum who took it and phone her and ask her what happened. Maybe she thought it was like the toy library or something? Or maybe she thought since the group organiser had left then she could help herself to the toys.

I'm always amazed that people try to make excuses for someone in this situation - I know people think they like to see all sides of the argument - I like to think I do, too - but there's absolutely nothing here to say the woman was suffering from PND or that she thought the swing was on loan.

It sounds pretty obvious that she saw her chance and took the swing. Surely if something's borrowed, it has to be agreed with the group organiser or a record kept somewhere?