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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

if I tell DD to get rid of her boyfriend?

99 replies

JumpingJellybeanz · 30/03/2017 16:54

He's polite. He's gentle. He shares everything he has with her. He does lots to support he. They've been together for about a year, living together in her student flat for 6 months. He's also a student on the same course but 3 years behind.

The problem is, he used her computer to do an assessed piece of work. Except instead of doing it himself he found a copy of DD's best friend's saved from years ago and submitted that. No he, DD and her now ex best friend are all facing disciplinary procedures and are at risk of being chucked out or suspended.

She has AS and has overcome so much to reach this point. Her poor friend is just a few weeks off doing her finals.

He's been a fucking idiot and he knows it. Is it forgivable and AIBU if I strongly encourage her to pack his bags. I'm so angry, I can't think straight.

*We're not in the UK if it's of any relevance.

OP posts:

Original poster

JumpingJellybeanz · 30/03/2017 17:52

That quote made me laugh, my dd is not on the spectrum but is pathologically honest! She actually sneezes if she tries to lie - drives her friends nuts!

DD is normally ok with eye contact but when she lies she goes full on autistic eye contact avoidance. The bigger the lie the bigger the avoidance tactic.

OP posts:

Graphista · 30/03/2017 17:53

Perfectly normal to read another students work for inspiration, ideas, signposting to wider reading and research...

Lifting an entire essay - whole other ball game!

Craiconwithit · 30/03/2017 17:55

Why would your daughter have a friend's completed 3 year old essay on her computer?
She needs to offer a plausible explanation for that.
Is there any hint that they suspect that she and friend colluded originally? If so, they're likely to investigate previously submitted work to check for evidence of collusion.
Re: the boyfriend. I'd ask DD if she thinks this is any different to him cheating on her sexually with her best friend?

Graphista · 30/03/2017 17:56

Hahaha! My dd has tried all sorts to suppress the sneezes - doesn't work cos then we can see/hear her trying not to sneeze so we STILL know she's lying!

She once as a toddler covered her ears with her hands to try and not sneeze when lying to my mum about eating a chocolate biscuit (she also had choc covered hands ) - mum nearly wet herself!

BoomBoomsCousin · 30/03/2017 17:57

She's definitely entitled to see it as a deal breaker. Her asking your opinion on whether she should or not would make me wonder if she was looking for permission to.

But given what else you say about him, since this seems so out of character I think it's forgivable if she wants it to be. There are a couple of caveats to that - providing the boyfriend is doing everything he can to minimise and atone for the impact on your DD, and providing your DD doesn't suffer too greatly from the disciplinary (I just think it would be really hard to put it behind her if she did actually have to redo a year/got a lower classification/etc. because of this).

I mean, it's a bloody stupid and dishonest thing to do. It's makes him look a bit lazy. And particularly the using something connected to your DD shows a lack of consideration about the potential impact of his actions. But as I understand it, cheating like this is not uncommon nowadays and if she went on to date someone else at university it's quite possible they would have done something similar just not using her laptop. So seeing it as an unforgiveable character flaw seems a bit unreasonable, given it's a first offence and he is otherwise lovely. People can and do learn from their mistakes.

I don't think you should tell her you think she should or shouldn't break up with him. I think you should tell her it's up to her and she's entitled to break up with him, forgive him, or put him on a sort of probation, that she can change her mind if she wants, and you will fully support her whatever she decides.

Graphista · 30/03/2017 17:57

And yes it's a pita cleaning choc off ears

Graphista · 30/03/2017 17:58

You could though say 'I'd dump someone who did that to me' which is type of comment I've made to my dd re shitty treatment by boys.

ClaryBeanHorshAndMe · 30/03/2017 17:59

Why would your daughter have a friend's completed 3 year old essay on her computer?

Why not?

We used to do that (only in our own study groups, of course...) made it easier to prepare for exams. Also, seeing as you could check their citations you knew the relevant passages to check if you didn't understand something.

I thought that was normal. Don't they do that in the UK?

Original poster

JumpingJellybeanz · 30/03/2017 18:01

She has the essay because her friend was helping her with how to structure her work. DD had already done that module so the content was irrelevant. DD was/is struggling with how to organise her work and communicate her thoughts well. Or so they say.

OP posts:

Graphista · 30/03/2017 18:03

Few Good reasons it could've been on op's dds laptop

Friends laptop not working/battery dead
Op's dd proofreading for friend
Op's dd helping friend do research
Laptop was friends then dd bought...

Katedotness1963 · 30/03/2017 18:05

I would wait to see if he puts his hands up and admits it was all down to him and the girls knew nothing. If he's honest and takes the blame, I'd give him a second chance. If he lies and tries to drop them in it, dump him!

shitgibbon · 30/03/2017 18:17

I know of a case involving three students, Student 1 emailed his essay to Student 2, and Student 3 stole the essay from Student 2's computer. All 3 students failed the module and had to retake it. Nobody was kicked off the course, but for someone about to graduate this would mean they would have an extra semester or, if not allowed to retake, a lower overall mark.

Twatxit · 30/03/2017 18:17

I think it's strange he's going through her files.

honeylulu · 30/03/2017 18:20

You can't make her dump him but what's he's done is disgraceful and I would bloody well say so!
When I was at law college someone did that to another friend in the group because he couldn't be bothered to do his own coursework. They were both hauled in. He tried to blame her (the cunt!) but luckily the truth was established - she was able to quote the content and he clearly hadn't even read it before submitting it.
He was not only booted off the course, he was banned by the Law Society from becoming a solicitor or legal exec. He'd been guaranteed a place at his step dad's law firm too. Regardless he seemed to not care (that the same nearly happened to our friend) and even found it amusing. It was years ago but my blood is boiling remembering.

unfortunateevents · 30/03/2017 18:24

This still doesn't add up. DD's BF submits an essay which is picked up (although in a different language now) as one which was submitted by another student (DD's friend) three years ago. College calls BF and Friend for a disciplinary. How on earth would the college know enough about the students to extrapolate that DD is the GF of this student or friends with the original writer of the assignment? I'm also not understanding the bit about the translation to English. Presumably the BF speaks both languages, otherwise he wouldn't have known what he was looking at when he stumbled across the work. So why would anyone have to translate it for him?

EC22 · 30/03/2017 18:28

Yes him accidentally stumbling upon it seems a bit far fetched, there's nothing wrong with the friend giving it to him to help, or it being translated. It's the submitting that is the problem and it was him alone that did that.

FullTimeYummy · 30/03/2017 18:33

My gut feeling with this story as it's been told is "yeah, right"

If there's a chance your daughter had a bit more to do with it; either by supplying the friend's essay, or by perhaps originally copying it herself also, then all the more reason to stay out of it.

Who "finds" an assignment for the relevant piece of work, from three years prior, without a bit of direction?

FWIW i don't think your daughter will come to any formal grief, but i don't think you should risk it by interfering with this situation

rollonthesummer · 30/03/2017 18:43

Is the boyfriend planning to take all of the blame?

ClaryBeanHorshAndMe · 30/03/2017 19:15

Is the boyfriend planning to take all of the blame

Depending on what the OP's daughter's involvement was he may be doing her a pretty massive favour...

lljkk · 30/03/2017 19:23

Someone I know has all of his work files on the desktop of his (desktop) PC... and never deletes anything. Point being, if you were asked to write an essay about "Geraldine Smudgins of Wildestown", and saw an essay there of same title... well, it'd be hard to miss & not have a peek at.

FullTimeYummy · 30/03/2017 19:31

I'm not saying it's not possible that he found the file, i'm saying it's far more likely he was pointed to it. And to be honest i'd doubt it was just hanging round on the laptop, could well have been stored elsewhere and the laptop loan/file discovery is a load of BS.

if it is a lie, then DD and the boyfriend are already in cahoots, the DD is already lying to the OP (nothing unusual or particularly worrying about that as such) which means that trying to make the daughter ditch the boyfriend is more likely to backfire and push DD & BF closer together and OP further away (as somebody on page one suggested) a

VestalVirgin · 30/03/2017 19:45

I'd say, if he takes all the blame, it would be excusable to stay with him.

If he tries to shift the blame to the girls, she should get rid of him. Even if she knew about it, it is him who profited from it, (or hoped to profit) so it is only fair that he take the blame.

P1nkP0ppy · 30/03/2017 19:59

Very strange:
a) he not only discovers not only the three year old paper, but a paper that needs translation
b) the university knows he's plagiarised a third person's work and who had it on their computer
c) and recognises the translated work

melj1213 · 30/03/2017 20:16

Your DD just happened to have the exact essay her boyfriend was borrowing her laptop to write, that was written by her friend three years ago, saved on the hard drive because her friend gave it to her (over all possible essays she could have used) for reference and he just happened to find it and thought "rather than borrowing from it and adding my own work, I'll just submit this essay in its entirety" then was surprised to be called out on plagiarism.

I call BS on the story as written in the OP. There's no way that many coincidences just happen with nobody being aware of it first. Most uni lecturers will use very similar essay/assignment questions so that they can assess students but the assignments will have different focuses (eg "how did X happen?" vs "why did X happen?" vs "what were the consequences of X happening?") for each cohort so that no past student's work will directly answer the question set for a different group and plagiarism will be so immediately obvious as to be pointless (not to mention will get you a bad mark as it doesn't actually fulfill the assignment requirements)

Even when I was at university - nearly 10yrs ago now - we had to submit a paper copy and an electronic copy. The electronic submission page of our VLE was integrated with TurnitIn (the university's plagiarism software) and once you had submitted an assignment you could generate a report that showed your "similarity percentage" to any other essay submitted for that particular subject from any institution that used the TurnitIn software and would provide a reference link to the work yours was similar to.

We were told in one of our very first lectures that the lecturer would get a report from TurnitIn for every essay and as long as your score was less than 20% it would be ignored as that was most likely down to quotes from the reference sources and similar wording structures caused by the specific assignment set. Anything over 20% would be flagged up for the lecturer to check on a case by case basis (sometimes it was innocent and a student had just used a lot of sources/direct quotes and sometimes it flagged suspected plagiarism and theft) and if they suspected it was theft/plagiarism/intentional collusion then the students would be called into a meeting to discuss it.

theymademejoin · 30/03/2017 20:45

I really can't see why your daughter would be called in for interview unless the boyfriend implicated her. The friend would be identifiable from the plagiarism software so it's reasonable that she would have been called in.

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