To be horrified at what my friend has done

[Letthedicefly]

She is a carer for elderly people in their own homes and stole £5 from a lady with dementia.

She is in pieces as she's been caught and keeps saying she only meant to borrow it and would have put it back. She knows it was so wrong but she's in an abusive relationship and had no access to money.

Now she's going to lose her job and get a criminal record which will make her more dependent on him.

I know she's in the wrong but I'm so upset for her as well.

I suspect the OP is the 'friend
I thought that too.

Do you want some brutally honest advice?

In your position this friend would now be an Ex-friend, I would have nothing further to do with her.

She stole money from a very vulnerable person when she was in a position of trust, how much lower can someone behave?

She is dishonest and has no apparent moral compass, how can you believe or trust anything she ever says? Are you even certain about her abusive H? What she did herself was a form of abuse!

She is scum.

The point is there was someone else to borrow off of. The OP. The OP seems to know the person's situation so there's no 'loss of face' explaining that they needed £5.

My mum has dementia. She leaves cash around everywhere. We and her district nurses are always telling her to put it away. Her district nurses call me to tell me she's doing it again. That's a good carer.

The amount of money or the reason for stealing it is almost irrelevant when you are dealing with people who may not even know what day it is. My mum gets in an awful flap if she loses something - she thinks until her head hurts to try to remember where she left it. Think about how that feels, to obsess about losing something only to find out someone actually took it? To believe YOU lost it then to find out that the person you should trust stole from you. That is heartbreaking, wrong and unforgivable. These people are in a care environment for a reason - because they are more vulnerable than you or I (and I say that as a person who has been in a DV relationship in the past). You DO NOT take advantage of people more vulnerable than you. End of story.

The OP's friend deserves the sack, not for the amount but for the person she stole from. She has, potentially, caused that person to doubt themselves and the people around them and that is shameful.

And it is stealing, not borrowing. Borrowing implies you had the other person's permission and knowledge to have the money which the OP's friend did not.

Nigel, do you not have any idea of the emotional impact these sorts of crimes cause? First the victim, this will make her feel mistrustful, confused, frightened. This woman's co-workers will have been forced to work in an atmosphere of mistrust and suspicion which would have soured their relationships with each other, their employer, the client and the clients relations. The clients relations would have felt suspicion, guilt. Minimising that impact because other unpleasant things happen in the world is plain nonsense. A bit like saying we should ignore people being assaulted in the street because what ISIS does is much worse.

As for second chance, second chances should only be appropriate ones. Pressing charges is the right thing to do. Potential employers have the right to know that this has happened. It's probably not appropriate for this person to be allowed to work with vulnerable people or in places where they are trusted to work alone like cleaning or with cash like in retail.

There are jobs that she will be able to do which don't involve these and a second chance should be in one of these. But it's not fair to give a second chance when you know it involves knowingly exposing others to potentially very distressing or harmful situations.

To those who believe her employees should give her a second chance, if you were a service user would you be so understanding and would you want someone in your home that was known to be a thief?

It seems incredibly narrow minded. We live in a very unjust society and there are powerful people ripping off the elderly and the vulnerable and the people of Greece who I believe were hit hard by Lehman brothers collapse.

If you were talking about someone who had shoplifted from a multinational I would agree with you. I do think we have created a very unequal society and that as a result the disadvantaged resort to crimes they would not otherwise commit. But this case is very different. However desperate the OP's "friend" was, stealing from the vulnerable is a shitty thing to do.

Yes, we are bullied by those in power. Yes, this woman is bullied by her husband. You can either respond to that by saying "the bullying stops here" or you can pass the pain on and pick on someone more vulnerable than yourself.

I do think the OP is doing the right thing standing by her "friend", if that's the reality of the situation. I also think if you steal from someone you're supposed to be caring for, you should never work as a carer again.

It's unlikely to have been the first time she has stolen from those she 'cares' for, usually it happens and there are suspicions and then the person is monitored etc. it's a disgusting thing to do to a very vulnerable person in her own home. I have sympathy for your friends situation but none for her actions. She could hardly leave and start a new life with the £5 she took form that old lady so I think it was more greed than desperation.

The "only a fiver" and "people with power have done worse and not been punished" arguments are old, misguided and simple minded.

Let's just step back and take a look at this. For reasons which are irrelevant, your parent/partner/child requires a carer, and you cannot be watching over the carer's shoulder continuously.

Your parent/partner/child also experiences severe pain. Pain that requires regular hydromorphone/morphine/oxycodone. You have to trust that the carer is actually giving your loved one the medication, instead of using it themselves or taking it for illicit resale.

Now, if you knew your carer has already been caught committing theft (as the situation in question is not an accusation or suspicion, it is fact - the cameras were put in BECAUSE of suspicion), how likely would you be to feel entirely comfortable that nothing untoward was occurring in your home?

A dear friend of mine has nursing for her daughter. It was morphine that was intended for her 6 year old daughter that was being signed off as having been administered to DD but taken by the nurse, instead.

You know how it came to a head? The nurse overdosed on the child's morphine, in the child's home, while she was supposed to be caring for the child and the mother was supposed to be sleeping.

This experience is absolutely true. I have been supporting the mother during the prosecution of the nurse in question.

You ask again why £5 matters? It is NOT the money. It is the breach of trust. Simple as that.

No way will an employer give her a second chance.It would be gross negligence to send someone they know to be untrustworthy into a vulnerable persons home.

Madam and for families like mine and many I care about... Amen to that.

Your friend did something wrong and very damaging to the victim.
Being abused herself (if true) does not give her any right to abuse others.
The victim's family are not being vengeful or disproportionate as your psts imply. They are doing the right thing.

If your friend had used the old lady's phone to ring you, OP, and ask for help I'd have had every sympathy. In fact, I do sympathise with someone in that situation but not to the extent of thinking no action should be taken against her. And the no phone part is hard to understand: when a relative of mine had carers all arrangements were made by phone and I don't see how you could really work as a carer without one.

Anyone else think that the employer saying they would give her another chance but the family is pressing charges so they cannot is actually highly unlikely?

Any carer agency would quite properly treat something like this as gross misconduct, their reputation is built on trust and having properly vetted employees. Any agency not sacking an employee in such circumstances would not be one I would want to use for my elderly relative.

You can be upset for her, and know she has good points and so on. But she committed a crime - theft against a vulnerable person who lacks capacity. The law cannot overlook that. It is very very serious.

So you're not being unreasonable to feel sorry for her, but the law would be highly unreasonable if it didn't punish people who abuse their position of trust with the vulnerable individuals in their care. How would you feel if a rape crisis police officer quietly pocketed a fiver from a victim they were interviewing?

I'm not sure I'd believe her story. I shared a flat when I was a student and one of my flatmates started noticing things were disappearing. She thought it was the cleaners and told the university but they didn't believe her. So she installed a camera and caught our flatmate. The victim had been through a major bereavement and wasn't as on top of things as normal and the thief had got a copy of her room key, stolen a bank card, intercepted bank statements etc etc. It was thousands of pounds worth, all stolen in small amounts. The thief constantly lied. She even told her victim she had a serious life threatening disease. Your friend may not be being abused by her husband, that may be just another lie.

But why were the cameras installed?

A very good question. No sympathy here BTW.

After the last carer stealing incident a while back I was told that proving it was almost impossible unless there was camera evidence.

That means actual footage of her hands actually taking the money not just going into that drawer or taking something unidentifable out.

So I can well imagine there were cameras installed if this wasn't the first time it had happened.

I was too beaten down and exhausted to do it but I wish I had as it was only several months after that I realised who it was, and it wasn't who I'd logically suspected (a new cleaning company who'd sent in a new one time only cleaner)... It was the carer I trusted the most and trusted her enough to show how devastated I was by the betrayal of trust of the 'thief'. The foul girl hugged me as I cried about the three shiny two pound coins is especially picked and polished for the tooth fairy to give my then 3yr old after he had had a traumatic operation where 6 teeth were removed. I cried at seeing my sons face fell when he'd rushed to get them out and found them gone, and I cried for me and him being so vulnerable to some immoral bastard rifling through my bedside drawers and ds piggy bank looking for anything they could take off us.

And that bitch stood there and watched me without a flicker of remorse.

Thank god she's gone.

Grrrrrr.

Miscellaneousassortment, that's dreadful, I'm sorry that happened to you!

X

As a nurse working with vulnerable people this just disgusts me. There is no excuse to take off those you have been entrusted to care for.

A few christmases ago at work a staff member took food items that were stored in a cupboard intended for the patients on Boxing Day (Mental health ward, items such as luxury biscuits etc).
We have never 'found' the culprit -although the rota narrowed it down there was no concrete proof who it could have been. We often have staff taking patients food (baguettes etc saved from lunch for later in the day).

yes, this is only food- and the carer in question may have 'only taken £5'- thats not the point. When a carer/nurse steals money/food it tarnishes all of us, it makes people lose their trust in us.
When people need our care by default they become 'vulnerable'. To take anything from them is abhorrent.

Sadly in my area of healthcare I am seeing an ever increasing trend of healthcare workers who do not care, they have no real interest in providing good quality care- they are simply there because its the only job they can find. They lack empathy, lack compassion, lack the desire to understand.
Whilst we continue to employ such people we will sadly continue to see a gross and disgusting attitude to the people we care for.

If they dont care then they dont care about robbing from vulnerable people. I cant accept it and I think that your 'friend' is a piece of shit.

Hang on a minute.

The OP asks "AIBU to be horrified at what my friend has done" yet spends the whole thread justifying her actions.

OP is in fact the "friend" I would bet my money on it. Or at least agrees she did nothing wrong

Yeah right. It's always the first and only time people have done it when they're caught.

Devastated. Yep. But reality is devastated to be caught, not to have done it.

Sad thing is that they will know she has pinched much more, but with no evidence can only claim back that £5.

There is no justification for that at all. Nothing can be said to make it an okay thing to do.

Your friend is rotten, OP. She could have sought advice about getting out of her situation but instead of that, she's actively chosen to take advantage of a vulnerable person by stealing what doesn't belong to her. I would sever friendship with someone like that, her relationship comes before her moral compass, her conscience, and her job. I wouldn't trust her as far as I could throw her. I dislike thieves intensely.

What !??

Err, who says she should never work again?

Oh now I read through the typos I see its a very disturbing post. If you're serious please phone Samaritans, or call an ambulance.

Btw this thread is empathetic and kind, it's made me feel a lot better to know people won't tolerate abuse and exploitation of the most vulnerable people in society.