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.

YANBU at being horrified. Are you planning on standing by your friend? I am sorry she is in an awful personal situation but her morals are so far out of line I'm afraid I could not be a friend to someone capable of theft / abuse of position like that. In someone's home as well.

no sympathy from me either. and car? job? but no phone? yet somehow managed to inform you?

She's in an abusive relationship and scrounging for mere pennies to get to work!!

What she did was awful but she sounds on her knees.

I am sorry that you are worried about your friend, and entirely understand why you are.

I am surprised that she did not realise the seriousness of what she was doing. She will lose her job, face a criminal prosecution and almost certainly be added to the list of people who may never work with vulnerable adults or children, ruling out her current and numerous other jobs. And rightly so, in my opinion.

I am very sorry that she did not find the courage to leave her partner before this. Hopefully this will be her rock bottom, and it will get better after this. She will definitely need your support.

Sorry if this is not what you were asking by the way. I don't know what you're looking for advice on other that if it's unreasonable to be horrified.

i think some people do things they normally would not under stressful situations. why did she need the fiver? i cant see the point of taking a fiver what would it have got her?

how did she make contact with you to tell you all this stuff but she could not not contact you to let you know how desperate she was?

maybe she should use this situation to get out the police will put her in contact with people that can help her and her children...do the children see the abuse from her partner.

as others have said there is a way out dont need a penny to do it. maybe she should use this opitunity to say she needs help

My mother had beautiful and some quite valuable jewellery. she also had daily carers in her own home. When she died there was no jewellery left apart from a couple of trinkets (no she didn't gift it away she had no capacity) No one else had access to her room :) Sad to have lost a potential memento to wear but even sadder that old people are being abused and robbed in this way.

:( not :) typing in the dark!

This makes me feel sick.
Stealing from a vulnerable person?
I have no words for what a despicable thing she has done. No matter what her circumstances, because until you see what dementia does you have no idea how awful it is. And there is no escape from dementia except death.
Your friend does have choices. She chose to steal.

This is awful - what a breach of trust

I'm sure her employer would have given her a £5 advance if she had requested it. I just can't actually muster any sympathy for this. A better solution would be to beg on the streets than steal from a vulnerable elderly person.

I feel some empathy for her and her situation but what she did was despicable. I think the previous advice is really good that, as a close friend, you should be making it clear that this is rock bottom and she needs to leave this relationship immediately

OP you posted this earlier: The company are as upset as I am and they agree it was probably a panicked knee jerk reaction and she intended to put the money back. which indicates the company valued her as an employee so why did she not explain to them that she had no money for petrol and request an advance on her wages?

Oh Hell, that is very sad.

As you say, everybody going into vulnerable people's homes as a carer will be well aware that, even if a gift is offered, they cannot accept them because the person does not have meaningful capacity. It's not a grey area at all.

Ok if you want to support your friend you will probably have to realise what may happen to her now. I know of someone who was caught stealing from someone she was supposed to be caring for...

The victims family became suspicious, they went through bank accounts and found out money had been taken.
The 'carer' had been known to 'help' the elderly, vulnerable victim with her shopping.
It turns out the 'carer' had been pocketing money using the victim's bank card.
The police came and turned her house upside down. They found possessions belonging to the victim. The 'carer' said she had been asked to 'look after' them.
She was obviously arrested.
Her family were put in the position that they had to explain to friends, family and neighbours what was going on.
She went to court and the judge told her what a scum bag she was.
Her name was in the local paper and people lined up on the comments page to wish all sorts of horrible things happening to her.
A few deluded souls bought her side of the story and actually started slagging off the victims family, saying they were obviously just after the victims money themselves, making themselves look like thick idiot scumbags in the process.
She spent a while in prison and came out with a tag on.
Now no-one wants to spend time with her or let them into her home.
She obviously can't get work now so has had to invent a story about a bad back to get more money into the household.

Society does not have a lot of tolerance for people such as your friend. You will stand alone in painting her as the victim in this scenario.

As for what will happen to her in a court of law, she will get some representation and if she can argue successfully that it was a one off, first offence and she was a in a desperate position and made one bad decision, then they may be a little more lenient.

Do not be surprised however, if there is more to this then your friend is letting on.

of course you should be horrified. surely she could have asked her work for a sub or just the fiver.

5 pence 5 pounds 5 grand, it's all theft from someone who's extend my vulnerable. given she's in the vulnerable boat it makes it worse. She should know how she would feel if someone who she trusted at this awful time stole money from her instead.

It's wrong. plain wrong and there must have been someone she could have asked.

having said all that I do hope she and her children escape the relationship. I wouldn't wish that on anyone so I do send sympathy for her situation.

I think the fact she took small amount does not indicate she isn't a master criminal ..However more small amounts won't be noticed.

so sorry this happened to you MiscellaneousAssortment, that was a very eloquent post. Any of us who work in positions of trust with vulnerable people should not abuse that trust.
OP I am sorry your friend is in an abusive relationship and I hope she finds the strength to leave. She could have made different choices regarding theft though and she will have to live with the consequences.

Someone in the care profession should know exactly how to get out of an abusive relationship, because we get so much training on how to prevent it happening to our clients. She could have contacted the council, womens aid, anyone. Why did she steal from her client? Why steal from a vulnerable elderly lady? That's abuse too. I can't understand why she'd do it. I don't think she'll find a job again any time soon unfortunately. Possibly never again in a situation where she's working with vulnerable groups..

I have to reiterate what other posters said too - my mum had carers when I was a child and I have vivid memories of one lady who came out. She was physically abusive towards my mum, she was very frightening. Having someone come to your home, who's supposed to help you and keep you safe - for them to betray your trust, it's an awful feeling.

What's the relevance, anyway, if it being a small amount? It doesn't matter - it's still a massive breach of trust and unacceptable.

No court or employer or provider of carers is going to say that theft from a vulnerable person is acceptable as long as it's under £5.01p

No sympathy at all. These people have no choice but to put trust in random folk, have to welcome them into their home and rely on them for the most personal of needs. Then they're betrayed.

I don't think people realise this isn't just a financial thing. For that person needing care this could cause massive anxiety. Could prevent them from getting the care they need to live.

So it's 'just a fiver'. She apparently has at least one friend who would have been prepared to lend it to her. She also can't be that isolated that she can't ask anybody for help, because she's managed to get in touch with you to have a whinge about how hard done by she is. If she needs to leave why can't she use your phone to get a refuge place sorted or why don't you pick her up and let her and the kids stay with you for a few nights? If it's that bad that stealing off vulnerable old ladies is okay surely you could put her up for a few nights?

TBH this battered wife stuff sounds like the sort of thing that dishonest people come out with when they're caught out. Dishonest people who will steal normally have few scruples about lying either. They can always come up with a sob story when they're caught. Fictitious dying Grandmas or sick babies etc, etc, etc. And borrowing it my arse. She's practically pulled her excuses verbatim from 'The Really Useless Criminal's Handbook'.

There's no excuse for this sort of thing. A resignation shouldn't be accepted, she should be prosecuted and sacked. If she was allowed to slink off and keep a clean work and employment record she'd just go off and do it to the next person.

YABU unreasonable to say you're 'horrified at what she's done' and then go on to say 'it's not that bad'.

It is that bad. Your friend is scum.

Oh yes, these other posts have jogged my memory, I forgot about the money stolen from my bank account with my card. I couldn't get out to the cash machine and it was agreed that carers would do it for me. Strangely I've stopped that part of the carer job now, after being stung a few too many times. Now though I have to have large amounts of cash in the house as Im mostly bed bound, and carers need petty cash for shopping etc. I get a choice of hiding my money securely but in a place that I can't access without pain and risk of injury, or having them money where I can get to it, but so can thieves... But that's the thing about being disabled (or elderly), you are put in positions where it's easy for people to exploit you.

Btw OP, I hadn't read all the replies when I went on my massive rant, so didn't realise there was a need to caveat my response.

But just to make it clear, I don't think you are a bad friend or anything & I'm sorry that anyone implied that

I was purely focused on what your friend had done, and how her excuse just doesn't wash.

There is no valid excuse that starts 'I took advantage of someone more vulnerable than myself and had the opportunity to do so as I'm in a position of trust. But it's ok, as I'm very vulnerable too, and someone is behaving terribly to me, so I decided to behave terribly to someone even more vulnerable than myself'

Having said that I'd still help her get out of her relationship if she actually wants to - not in a 'lending money for some tenuously related thing that at some point may ladder up to an escape plan' way though! I'd help her with info, advice and some practical support (like taking her to housing office).

But I am skeptical she actually wants that kind of help, as it all seems aimed at keeping her in the situation vs getting out - he takes her money she needs for petrol so rather than moving out she steals money from someone who can't protect themselves... All very dubious tbh.

I don't know why you posted this, OP - surely you realised that there would be lots of people who have experienced this from the other side?

My MIL was systematically divested of all her possessions by the carers or cleaners (we never found out who it was) in her specialist dementia home. Jewellery, clothes, even her fucking television, all disappeared. The management shrugged their shoulders and blamed it on her dementia (yeah, right, because that explains how a tv goes missing).

She died two years ago and I am still angry and upset that when she was at her most aged and vulnerable, someone could have stolen from her. I don't think anything could excuse that.

MiscellaneousAssortment there are no words really

Your friend has massively fucked up, in an awful way. Stop minimizing what she did.

That being said, I do have a degree of sympathy for her. I can only imagine how bad her situation must be that she has resorted to sinking so very low. Your friend can't change what's happened, she will have to accept the consequences for her actions. She needs to recognize why she is in this situation now and take steps to make sure she never ends up here again. There is help available out there, women's aid should be her first port of call. If she has no money, tell her to go to a police station or citizens advice office (i cant imagine they'd not help if asked)
Carry on being a good friend, shell need your support.