I think dd2's friend may have stolen from her.AIBU to talk to school - or not to do so?

[Northernlurker]

Dd2 (13) had her purse in one lesson today, in her bag at the side of the classroom under a bench. In the next lesson, after lunch, one of her friendship group said she had found her bus pass type card in the previous lesson's classroom. Dd went to put it back in her purse and found it missing. She retraced her steps and checked at the office - nothing. On the way home she and another friend met the girl who found the bus pass who came running over saying she had found dd's purse on top of some lockers. Dd looked in it. It still contained a Next gift card which only had £1 on it. Her 'emergency' £5 and £5 another girl had paid her as sponsorship money for a cycle ride she did were missing together with an iTunes card which fortunately was empty.
Four pieces of coincidental info -

The girl who found the pass and purse was on a shopping trip with dd before Easter - which is when dd spent what was on the Next card.

The same girl had no money of her own on that occasion and dd bought her lunch in Mcdonalds.

The purse was a nice Cath kidston one dd bought with birthday money.

If I know dd she will have been very upset about this and she has big blue eyes and a very sweet nature. Bluntly she's the sort of person it's very hard to be mean to. She also possibly comes across as a soft touch.

I suspect that this girl has taken the purse and then felt bad about it. I don't really know what to do. I would never suggest this to school but tbh I think the circumstances are very suspicious and I am sure they would investigate. If this is the way this child - or any kid - is going then better they be stopped now BUT I also feel desperately sorry for them. Dd doesn't have an excessive amount of money but she has £40 a month to spend on herself plus occasional gifts from grandparents of aroud £10-20. Based on where dd mentioned meeting this girl today I think she probably lives in a less 'affluent' area. It's entirely possible she has very little money of her own. We are Christians and I know dd will have talked to her friends about that. I reckon she may well have thought that the money is no loss to dd and that we won't take it further. I can afford to replace the money for dd and she has got the ourse itself back.
Dh thinks we should tell school without drawing any conclusions at all and I see his point. I feel very protective of dd. However tbh I also feel protective of the child - whoever it was - who has been daft enough to steal like this. I guess I feel a bit guilty about having money that others don't even though we are by no stretch rich. We're ok from month to month though our savings are a joke

So AIBU to do something? AIBU to do nothing? WWYD?

Is there a new AIBU prize for the crapwanker who types 'Nazi' first on a thread?

Just ignore them, Northernlurker.

I think you should report this to school and let them investigate. Your suspicions might be right, but they might be wrong. And if they are right, getting caught on something small like this might be better for the girl than thinking she got away with it, even if she does feel guilty. By not reporting it, you are telling your DD that it won't be taken seriously if people steal from her.

Blimey, Northern, you're a closet Nazi eh?
Well you could have said.

Thank goodness there's so many astute posters knocking around ready and willing to drill right down to the bones of a thread and uncover the only logical conclusion.

Firstly, the reason for taking the cash and not the gift card is simple-if they're caught with the gift card it would be hard to explain it away. It doesn't mean that someone "in the know" decided not to take it for that reason.
I found a wallet one time that had been pick pocketed. All cash removed, but they'd left the gift cards in. Owner (I got a nice letter) thought it was very funny-there was about 20 worth of cash, but over 200 on the gift cards.

I would tell the school that it has been taken. No accusations, the facts only. It was there-it might have even fallen out-these things happen, it was lost, it was found without the cash. Tbh I would suspect if you made any accusations to the school on the evidence you have then you would look as though you were getting at the other girl.
School may have had a few such incidents and it helps them to know about them.

Then I would find somewhere where the emergency money is seperate. For dd1 it is loosely sewn into the lining of her bag. Because half the idea of the emergency money is it's there is an emergency-like losing her purse. keeping it together seems a little silly.

And round here (south east) 40 a month is a lot of money, even without the extra bonuses you say she has, unless you require her to pay for a lot of stuff. I have a 13yo. She gets presently around 17.50 a month, plus 15 clothing allowance. That's considered quite generous. And she's expected to pay for quite a few things herself.

No, no, no. You mustn't leave. You're one of the good guys, and you know a lot about social history, which makes those Downton Abbey threads on Telly Addicts almost highbrow

I wish I'd posted in support now. I was going to but didn't get around to it because thegreylady said it all for me at Sun 27-Apr-14 07:25:35

Sorry for being lazy. I should have said I agreed with her.

There has been a lot of misquoting and making up of things you haven't even said lately.

I've been battered by it over the last week, so much so that I turned on someone for accidentally taking me out of context yesterday.

Ignore the knobbers, and listen to the others - you said nothing wrong, and it was quite clear what the intentions behind your words were.

With regards to the original problem, just say to your daughter to report the facts to the school office: purse was found on top of lockers with money taken.

northernlurker - please don't go. FWIW I would just let the school know that your dd has had money stolen from her.

Ds1 had money stolen at school in what developed into a concerted campaign and the first time we "let it go", then when it happened again we told him to contact the teacher, but actually the school may have taken it more seriously, more quickly if we'd reported the first instance. It was very upsetting for him and he stopped trusting any of his classmates: we should have got involved more quickly and robustly.

monicale I have noticed that. Some posters seem determined to read between the lines and basically make massive assumptions that aren't there.

nl is justifiably very upset.

What if the OP had written like this:

"My daughter's purse and most of the stuff within it have been stolen from school. The funny thing is, one of her schoolmates found first of all the missing bus pass from the purse in a classroom and then, the missing purse on top of some lockers, and returned it to dd. The even funnier thing is, inside the purse was a (virtually worthless) giftcard that dd had had. The even funnier thing still, is that a week or so back, dd and this same girl had been shopping together and dd had spent the money on the now almost empty giftcard then.

AIBU to think that one coincidence (the person finding the missing bus pass is to be discounted as just that, but that the same girl not only then found the missing purse itself but was with dd when the giftcard was spent (and so knew it was worthless now whereas the others within the purse weren't) is as stinky as a very stinky thing indeed. "

How many people would be attacking the OP then?

Either the OP's daughter's friend is a veritable Sherlock and needs to be contracted by the plod asap to showcase her enviable detective talents, or she is a thief.

I wouldn't point the finger at anyone. I would in no uncertain terms tell the school exactly what I've just written there, purse goes missing, bus pass is found by A, purse is found by A. Because those are the facts that are known. The school should, as my school did recently, when a teacher's purse was lifted out of her bag, speak to both relevant classes from where it could have happened, and within a day, the money was replaced.

A does need to hone her skills slightly, as we all know that those often guilty of crimes of varying natures do like to put themselves at the centre of investigations by helping out etc.

In all honesty, I'd be a lot less Christian about this young lady, as it sounds less that she needs the ££ and so sees the OP's daughter as an easy target and more a case of nasty bullying within friendship groups to make herself "needed" and to be seen as the "saver/helper" to the OP's dd.

I never cease to be amazed that an OP whose child has been the victim of a crime gets flamed to the point of leaving MN, but I guess that's just the way the morals of many of the users of this site work.

Vile vile people.

A does need to hone her skills slightly, as we all know that those often guilty of crimes of varying natures do like to put themselves at the centre of investigations by helping out

This made me laugh. How many films have I seen where Morgan Freeman or some similarly crustily wise old cop advises the rookie to scan the crowd?

The rest of it I completely agreed with.

scottishmummy is right, this place is going to the dogs

I have certainly had my eyes opened by a lot of people this weekend

I had money stolen from me at a similar age to your DD, and it was likely to have been one of my close friends. Not that it's really relevant, but she had quite a difficult financial situation in that her step-dad was the main bread winner, and although the family were fairly well off, she was not given any pocket money, and had to ask every time she needed money, which must have been uncomfortable for her.

Anyway, although there was no proof, my parents' suspicions made our friendship very difficult and made my life at school quite complicated for a while.

I do think you should mention the theft to the school, because (A) it might help find the culprit, particularly if they have CCTV and (B) it might make them rethink their policy of having bags left where they can potentially easily be stolen from. I do agree it might be more sensible for your DD to lock her purse in her locker, or keep cash on her person. I also don't see why she is taking gift cards into school? During secondary school I always had a seperate purse for school and another one for shopping etc which I kept gift cards and my bank card in.

I can see how on the one hand it is quite suspicious that the same person returned the bus pass and purse at different times. However, it is almost so suspicious (that and leaving a gift card known to be empty) that it almost makes me think the girl isn't the theif, because she would try and cover her tracks better.

I agree there are other equally plausable scenarios. For example an iTunes gift card might appeal to more people than a Next gift card, and the theif was someone completely unrelated.

It is certainly true to say that AIBU and some other threads seem to have got really vicious lately. Some posters seem to be incapable of responding to a post without being deeply unpleasant about the person posting. Could we all step back and not dive into AIBU discussions automatically looking for something to criticise?

By helping maybe broken? Saying something useful and constructive?

I don't usually comment on threads in aibu but I can't believe how some posters are being to the op. Please don't listen to them Northern - your comments have been deliberately taken out of context. How ridiculous.

Not sure if you'll read this now Northern but in case you do:

I would explain the facts to the school:
Someone found your daughter's bus pass in classroom x.
Your dd couldn't find her purse to put the card back in.
Eventually, someone found dd's purse on the lockers and returned it. Unfortunately £10 was missing.

Then I'd leave it at that.

I've worked in a couple of secondary schools and sadly some children do take things from others.

I would get an ordinary cheap purse for your dd to take to school and only have the emergency £5 and bus pass in there.

Alternatively - does your dd wear a blazer? If so, does she have an inside pocket? Ours did when I was at school and I used to keep my bus pass and lunch money zipped in there - never took a purse. Perhaps your dd can do this?

I think it is careless to leave money/valuables unattended. Purse in a Schoolbag left in a pile of other bags seems a very unwise choice. But she's only 13. Live and learn.

So when a little old lady gets mugged and her purse taken, it's her fault for having a purse on her is it?

Because living by the logic of some of the twattery on this thread, it would seem so.

Unless those slagging off the OP and her daughter belong to the "finders keepers" ethos of course.

Which is the only logical conclusion one can draw, really.

How charming.

I hope you don't go Northernlurker. I understood your post. You mean that how would anyone else know that the gift card was worthless, which would mean the friend should be considered a suspect as it were.

Don't go Northern. Ignore the snippy vicious twats on here. They are a minority in the whole scheme of things, it just seems like there are more because they are all congregated in one place baying for blood. Its pathetic, rise above it.

If I'm following this properly, the child had a bus pass, £5 for emergencies, plus another £5 which was sponsorship money that might have been given that day, £1 on a Next card and nothing on an iTunes card.

Hardly what I'd call a prime mugging target, even if I thought it was okay to steal stuff off people I nastily considered had more money than sense.

And she had a pretty purse. I didn't know how much Cath Kidston purses were so I had a quick Google and found £11 to £25.

I'd probably give her a purse for under £5 and reluctantly warn her that envious eyes covet nice things and to keep it for best - whatever best is if you can't even take a purse out with you. We're not talking about something made by Hermes out of unicorn skin.

And she put it in a place where it seems all the other children put their bags. Maybe that's a school rule. Maybe she's naive. She is a child. It's allowed.

When I was 18 and on my first holiday without my parents, I left my passport and return ticket in my suitcase. My money and travellers' cheques were cunningly hidden in a sock under the bed . Luckily, the maids were honest.

But if they have been pinched I wouldn't have liked to have posted on here asking for much sympathy. And I wouldn't mind betting you've all done some similar daft things.

I'd be telling her to keep valuables on her in a zip pocket. pumpkin's suggestion of a blazer pocket is a good idea.

You do sometimes put your jacket on the back of a chair. I've had a thief try to sneakily slide my coat off my chair. Luckily I was deliberately sitting on it. But then I am an adult.

A pocket sewn inside her skirt is probably a good idea because a bum-bag might contravene uniform policy and worse, make you look irretrievably nerdy.

However, I'm sure OP has thought of all those things. She was just asking how she should deal with her daughter's friend, who is quite possibly a thief, which isn't nice for her daughter and also might get the friend into big trouble one day. Which as dranksangria said, is more Christian than I'd be feeling about her.

People are now trying to justify themselves for being a bit shitty, aren't they?