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?

So, the fact that they are complaining about you going to the police indicates to me that they are not facing up to the seriousness of the crime but are minimising it. This in itself shows that they should not be in a role where they work with vulnerable people. They need to face up to the full significance of what they have done which includes recognising that it was a crime and that they actually deserve a criminal record. They deserve it because they committed a crime, not because you are being vindictive or unfair.

"you didn't protect your PIN"

Victim blaming is morally indefensible. It does not reduce the severity of the crime in the slightest.

It's maybe inaccurate too:

My new credit card was stolen several years ago before it reached me, but I received the PIN in a separate letter. I've never told anyone my PIN or written it anywhere.
Someone still was able to withdraw cash on successive days, up to my £1500 limit.

The police said professsional thieves have machines to do this, but ntbo didn't elaborate.
My bank believed it wasn't me, because I've never drawn cash in 35 years on a credit card and also they know I'm not short of money.

Those "friends" may have had access to professional thieves to commit their crime.

To those suggesting that the op didn't press charges and (blackmailed) asked for double the money back , do you really think the thieves would have had that sort of money available or even the morals to do so?

I don't know if it's been said yet, so, apologies.

But would you have not prosecuted to avoid "ruining their lives" (horseshit btw. ) if it had been a violent crime?

I'm not minimising theft- it's horrible! But where, if there is any logic in their attitude, would you draw the line?

(I also remember the other thread- she got unanimously panneled.)

Do people think that in the whole of the UK in the last 10 years there has only been one incident of flatmates stealing a debit card and using it?
It is perfectly possible that the two threads are about completely different incidents.

BigChocFrenzy I wasn't victim blaming and the circumstances in this case aren't the same as what you described, the card was never missing in the post

Why would being poor mean you thought it was acceptable to steal.

You did the right thing OP, because you protected future - more vulnerable - vulnerable victims.

I know the circumstances behind one particular case in which
a solicitor was jailed for stealing a total of about £90,000 from a blind elderly woman with dementia:

When the woman's late husband was dying of cancer, he trusted his solicitor to administer his estate in trust for his vulnerable wife, to pay for her remaining years at a special nursing home that catered for the blind with dementia and her guide dog.
Fortunately, it was a large estate - motive jealousy ? - so there was still plenty left to fully fund the old woman until she died.

That solicitor betrayed the trusts of a vulnerable client dying of cancer and then betrayed a very old blind woman with dementia.
That illustrates why known thieves must be prevented from entering professions where they can prey on the vulnerable

most professions allow after a few years of erasure a new application to the register - but to achieve that one needs to have fully accepted responsibility for the crime and the punishment

... or to go on a few "suitable courses" and then put on a good act suggesting they've done so

To be fair, the regulatory boards are often pretty skilled at seeing through such a stance - but by no means always, as I know to my cost through recruiting in healthcare

wormwood I was illustrating a case where thieves didn't have the PIN, but still stole successfully.
Also, that it may suggest contact with a professional thief

Serves them right. Thieving, immoral bitches. Whatever profession they were going into, I'm glad they've been stopped. People you can trust? Laughable.

🤔

Twickerhun
See here on spend convictions
www.nacro.org.uk/resettlement-advice-service/support-for-individuals/disclosing-criminal-records/rehabilitation-offenders-act/#England

Assuming their sentence was less than 6 months and they were over 18 then the conviction would take 2 years to be spent from the end of the sentence.

So it hasn't happened that recently.

spent not spend

I think sometimes it's very hard to recognise that someone you know can do truly atrocious things, so people minimise and rationalise as the cognitive dissonence is so huge. Happens with crime a lot, sadly, and the victim gets blamed when it's within a friendship group as that is a lot more comfortable than accepting that friends are actually awful people - easier to take a six of one, half a dozen of the other attitude so they don't have to reconsider everything in the past, too.

You did absolutely the right thing. Professional jobs tend to involve patients, children, and/or people in crisis and these people very plainly lack the moral character necessary to do that kind of job. I'm assuming if very much better paid, and working with vulnerable people, that they were training for some branch of medicine. Who would want a medical professional capable of this? You were doing the world a favour.

They can work again. They're young and an enhanced DBS wouldn't be required for every workplace role. They can go to another uni with credit for their time previously - dropping out for whatever reason isn't rare. But they can't and shouldn't be allowed within a mile of someone vulnerable - these events proved it.

And a teacher capable of doing this shouldn't be shaping young minds, from the older thread. Again, well done the reporter.

It was teaching they wanted to go into, wasn't it? This was mentioned the last time this story was posted, only in that version, they were allowed to finish their courses, rather than being chucked out of the university.

Err no. You 100% did the right thing. If they were planning on working with vulnerable people this would have happened again and again.

You're definitely NOT BU. I can't imagine anyone doing what they did and thinking it was just a bit naughty. Everyone knows it's theft, pure and simple. And your other friends saying you should have lied to the police when you saw the CCTV are just as bad.

None of these people are your friends. Bin them and find some law-abiding normal mates. Good luck :)

I'm actually slightly entertained by the poster who thinks it's cruel and lacking in compassion to co-operate with police when a supposed friend steals from you, but presumably absolutely fine to throw the book at a stranger. So a supposed friend betrays trust and exploits your proximity to predate upon you - showing their lack of empathy, to a scary extent - and this somehow makes them more worthy of second chances than someone who takes from a total stranger they can see as faceless?

I think they sound sociopathic, in a way an impulse driven crime from a stranger isn't necessarily going to be. These people needed to be blocked from professional lives where they were likely to be entrusted with vulnerable people, because they seemed to think disliking someone made them fair game for criminality.

I've just noticed they wanted to work with vulnerable people. I think we can all guess why!

You didn't "ruin their lives". THEY ruined their lives. You did the right thing - the next person they stole from (and they would have done had you not gone to the police) may not have been as lucky as you in being able to spot the theft/identify them.

They are thieves. It came back and bit them. Serves them right.

TBH - I think stealing from a friend or relative is MUCH worse than stealing from a stranger (though don't condone either, obviously). It is a betrayal of trust as well as a theft.

I don't be hiding your valuables from "mutual friend" as well if they think this behaviour is defendable in any way shape or form. Well shot of all of them.

I'd not I don't

YANBU because aside from many other reasons, had they not received harsh punishments for their crimes they would have been tempted to repeat their behaviour as a way to make money.

Don't give it a second thought now OP. You are not to blame in any way at all. There are consquences to actions and they had thought they would get away with it.