A couple of years ago, a friend of mine had £3,000 stolen from the safe in his retail premises. It was unnecessary to retain the services of Sherlock Holmes to identify the culprit as it was a simple matter to watch the in-store CCTV system and see the manager who had walked out on the job two days earlier, letting himself into the store, opening the safe and taking the cash. The next blow was to find that due to a technicality the loss was not covered by his business insurance. Annoying and frustrating for my friend though this was, it was as nothing as to how matters progressed.
Firstly the ex-manager repeatedly called his former employers demanding his outstanding wages and then instituted tribunal proceedings in support of his claim. The police located and arrested him several weeks later and in the fullness of time the case went to court where (wisely in view of the evidence) he pleaded guilty.
The judge said that he took a dim view of someone abusing a position of trust and issued him with a suspended prison sentence. The judge also ordered him to repay the £3,000 he had stolen. At this point his solicitor stood up and said that his client was could not afford to repay the money and the judge agreed to reduce it to £500 at the derisory rate of £10 per week. (It was never made clear why he was not ordered to continue paying £10 per week until the debt was cleared. My friend had always assumed as had I, that criminals are not allowed to profit from their crimes. This individual had profited by at least £2.5K the vast majority of which appeared to have been snorted up his nose.) It is not a surprise that some two years later not a single penny has been repaid.
My friends efforts to pursue his ex-manger through the civil courts were frustrated by the fact that both the court system and the police refused to divulge his address details (for the serving of court papers) on the grounds that they were prohibited from doing so by the Data Protection Act!
My friend has been recently advised that the court is taking the ex-manager in front of a judge again and that he may be committed to prison as he has not complied with the court's previous order. He has been warned however that if this does happen then his liability to repay even the paltry sum of £500 will be expunged.
It is to be hoped that having shown contempt for his employer and then shown contempt for the courts this miscreant will deserve the punishment he richly deserves and will come to realise that turning a ready profit by breaking the law is not tolerated in this country.
It is to be hoped, but neither I, nor my friend will hold our breath.
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