To have 'ruined' my best friends life

[tanglewreck]

My two best friends stole my debit card and withdrew money from my card over several days. They were both training in prestigious professional careers.

As soon as I noticed my card gone I contacted the police and when cctv came back I identified my two 'best friends'.

The police arrested them, they admitted guilt due to overwhelming evidence and were found guilty. They were given a suspended sentence but were unable to qualify in their chosen professions as the uni chucked them out and they will never ever work in their chosen profession. Their crimes are 'spent' now but as they got a suspended custodial sentence of two years their criminal record will stay on an enhanced dbs check for the rest of their life. They have lost their chance to work in their dreams jobs and now work in minimum wage menial jobs and will do for the rest of their life, unless they can somehow run their own business of work their way up the career ladder. They will never work with vulnerable people again though.

They have both consistently felt I should have got mad at them, asked for the money back and more but not have gone to the police and ruined their lives. A few people have said since they hadn't committed a crime before, that they'd been good friends previously and had been jealous and stolen the card as a moment of madness. I should have just got double the money back or made an agreement for how much to give back and forget they exists. That it was mean to have gone to the police and showed a lack of compassion, giving them a criminal record for life. They were shocked that I never even discussed anything with them. I'm a very calm person. I don't do angry. I reacted in a calm and collected way. Blocking their numbers and never ever even speaking to them again but I have been shocked that all our mutual friends took their side, thinking what I did was mean.

AIBU to think if you don't want your life ruined and any chance of a career in your dream job destroyed, you shouldn't steal off someone who considered you a friend and you have only yourself to blame?! I feel not an ounce of guilt and never ever will. If you don't want a criminal record. Don't commit a crime. Simple isn't it. AIBU?

Did you know it was them when you phoned the police? If you didn't, no one can say you "got them a criminal record" because you didn't know it was them. Even if you did know, of course you aren't being unreasonable. It's a crime to steal someone's money, they're thieves. YANBU

I remember the thread from the teacher too. Exactly same scenario but apparently different. Oh well, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt because strange things do happen and say, YANBU. Stealing from a friend is the lowest of the low, especially if two people gang up and conspire against you. It sounds like they've learned nothing and never will unless they accept they did this to themselves. As for a PP saying they wouldn't go to the police, well, I would. This wasn't swiping a tenner out of a communal area, this was cold and calculated stealing.

People saying that they would have let it go when they found out it was friends.... Is it OK for friends to steal then?

Op, what you did was absolutely right! They ruined their careers, not you!

They're not your best friends, they're a pair of selfish, devious fuckwits who are whining because they got caught. Cut them out of your life, plus anyone who sides with them. They made their own bed, it's not your problem.

I remember the other thread too! I remember the thief kept justifying her actions saying "I thought it would be ok because she would claim it back from the bank".

Sophie and Lanouvelle - it would be wrong to just drop charges and let them get away with it. Who's to say that they wouldn't do it again to someone else? They took a risk, committed a criminal act (and even worse against a friend), knowing full well that a criminal record would finish their careers. They were obviously not suited to that career!

Training to be better paid than a teacher? So doctor or lawyer? Well they clearly have enough brains to be able to work in more than minimum wage jobs for the rest of their lives and they need to use their brains to get out of the trap they got themselves in.

They need to face up to their own issues and sort themselves out. They're not ruined for life at student age, of course not. If they've got the 'imagination' to steal a bank card and spend lots on it over several days I'm sure they have the 'creativity' to create a decent future for themselves.

Unless they are morally bankrupt fuckwits of course.

I'm sure I've read about this on MN before but it was one of your 'friends' who was posting, complaining their life had been ruined.
You did the right thing OP they are both idiots

I have never known how they got my card or pin. I will never know.

The 'I've read this before' comments are getting a bit old now. Sorry guys!

I'd love to see those threads!

well you didnt actually ruin their lives they stole from you fwiw my dh has a criminal record and served a prison sentence it will always show up on his DBS record too , all this happened nearly 20 yearrs ago and before i met him but he accepts that he cant change what he did and he works in a warehouse and hes a totally different person now.

True friends would never steal from you
Never Ever X Infinity

But I would perhaps not have pursued them to the extent of wrecking their chances at their chosen profession

I would have done. If my so-called friends singled me out as an easy victim I'd be more likely to deal with the matters in this manner than if it had been a stranger. If you are a thief, then that's for the courts to deal with not your friends.

They only commited one crime. Not several crimes against you.

They withdrew money several times over several days. It wasn't a moment of madness instantly regretted. Neither did they own up and show remorse before the OP went to the police.

By going to the police you knew you would give them a criminal record

Obviously the OP didn't know her friends were the thieves before she reported them to the police - how would she? Most decent people don't treat their friends in that way. And it would take a very poker-faced person to say she didn't recognise them in the CCTV - and wouldn't that be lying to the police? Isn't that a crime too?

and ruin any chance of them getting a job in their chosen career

Er ... no - they did that themselves when they decided to steal from their friend - several times.

The only thing I can think of which might support what you say, is if the OP could have chosen not to press charges but I don't know if this is even possible.

They stole from you, they have loose morals. Any of your friends who think that you should not have reported them also share the same loose morals. You need to find new friends.

I also saw the thread from the other point of view - it has to be the same story! It's not the weirdest coincidence in the world for both the victim and the perpetrator to be posting about the same incident on MN several months apart, after all, and a detail such as the teacher training could easily have been changed to hide identities.

OP, IIRC they kept quiet even when you realised you'd had several grand nicked and didn't 'fess up until presented with the overwhelming evidence. Any opportunity you had to deal with the matter privately was therefore taken away - by THEM. It wasn't a one-off, it was a spree lasting several days. They weren't your friends. You did absolutely the right thing.

You haven't ruined their lives.

THEY have ruined them, through their own reckless and deliberately criminal actions.
It's not as if they had made some genuine mistake.

Sorry to bring it up (and hey, I did try to give genuine advice) but it is quite weird as it's basically the same scenario. Nobody is saying you are making it up but I do wonder if that was posted by your ex "friend".

If they'd got away with repaying you and treating it as a jolly jape, it would have happened again. Because you plainly didn't really mind.
And when you finally had enough surely the police would have asked why you didn't say something the first five times...

I'm financially comfortable so didn't need the money. If that makes a difference. I think that's what has made our mutual friends side with them.

I'm not a millionaire by any standards. But I'm financially comfortable. They didn't do it for the money. They did it out of bullying. They had been excluding me for a while. Suddenly decided to stop speaking to me/excluding me from all social events. Think they were jealous of me. I had been left very confused so was please to realise they'd taken the money. I never thought it was them but was relived to finally know and realise why that they hated me and this was the reason for them taking the money.

I've seen this thread as a reverse before 😕

Yes, I've read this before too. Almost word for word. Read it from the other's side as well.

You had no choice but to go to the police as you didn't know at the time who had stolen your card.
Anyway they stole from you, actions have consequences, it's a shame it has impacted so greatly on their lives but tough shit- bottom line is that they are thieves.
Block, move on and lose the friends who have sided with them. If they think that what they did was ok/worth only a slapped wrist the they are no better than them

Sophie- the OP went to the police before she knew it was her friends. And presumably once the police were involved, is it up to the victim to decide whether or not to pursue it? The police or DPS surely make that call - a crime was committed.

These two women must have been unbelievable stupid if they didn't think through what would happen if they were caught. So unbelievable stupid, and so lacking in any kind of integrity, that I don't doubt their chosen profession is better off without these two utter imbeciles adorning it.

upper - I'm not saying you're wrong. I just think different people will likely take different approaches with this awful kind of situation, and that it's very difficult to say definitively that one is right and the others wrong. I personally (just my opinion) think the punishment in this case is too severe, though I totally accept that these individuals brought it on themselves.

I have faced a far worse dilemma with a close friend and I didn't report or push charges - I often wonder if I did the right thing, but I can't work out any way of definitively adjudicating it. At the end of the day, sometimes these things come down to the values that you prioritise and different people will inevitably have different views on what justice means.