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Thursday, August 05, 2010

Thief gets off lightly

A man who was claiming disability in the United Kingdom was caught on tape doing the jitterbug. It was soon discovered that he had fraudulently received nearly 20 000 pounds from the UK government. This man was punished with 120 hours of community service.

120 hours of work for 20 000 pounds is pretty good money. That is around 167 pounds per hour. I can only hope that I will one day get a job that pays that well.

Seriously, if you are going to punish someone, the punishment has to be worse than the gain that was made by the doing wrong. As far as I can see this man is still ahead. 120 hours of community service is not likely to deter someone from stealing 20 000 pounds.

*update*

A commentor pointed out that I missed the last sentence in the article that said the man was paying back the money.

It still not enough. The risk of stealing from a government program is very low if all you have to do is give the money back and spend 120 hours picking up garbage at the side of the road. That is about what I would expect from a case of a 15 year old stealing a $20 shirt.

Posted by Hugh MacIntyre on August 5, 2010 | Permalink

Comments

Why should he be held to a higher standard than MPs?

Posted by: Paul McKeever | 2010-08-05 9:12:04 AM


After Sharia takes hold in the UK the punishment will be more severe. He would then likely actually end up disabled from the punishment for crimes of theft (and jitterbugging). Nature abhors a vacuum and there is little more vacuous than a culture hollowed out from the multi-culti welfare/nanny state.

Posted by: John Chittick | 2010-08-05 9:41:52 AM


Hugh,

Is it too much to ask that you read the entire story before whinging about it? The last sentence reads: "Read has paid back £3,000 of the money owed and a plan is in place to settle the remainder." So your suggestion that he gets to keep the money is wrong. You would know that if you were paying attention.

"As far as I can see this man is still ahead."

I guess that just means you can't see all the way to the end of the article.

Posted by: Fact Check | 2010-08-05 10:30:33 AM


Fact Check,

I did indeed miss that bit at the end. I'll correct the record.

Posted by: Hugh MacIntyre | 2010-08-05 10:44:03 AM


I can tell you one thing, for sure. He'll never pay it all back. These judgements are mostly for show. Rarely is the money paid back, whether it's an employee who gets caught stealing, or a politician who gets caught taking bribes, the money is never fully refunded. It only stands to reason that most of the money has already been squandered, and anyone who's crooked enough to steal it in the first place will not change his way of thinking.

Posted by: dp | 2010-08-05 10:53:54 AM


That's what garnisheeing wages is for, dp. Unless he wants to live on the dole or skip the country, ultimately he'll pay it back, provided the state shows an interest in collecting.

Posted by: Shane Matthews | 2010-08-05 11:07:26 AM


I've never heard of an employer, government, or any business going through the garnishee process to recover money stolen by a former associate. The make a show of it, but usually stop short of wasting time trying to get blood from a turnip.

An area co-ordinator for an oil company I used to work for was (finally) caught taking kick-backs from contractors. I was privy to the investigation, and the amount of money involved was well into six figures. There was a judgement for $40,000, and not one penny of that was ever recovered. They just wanted to wash their hands of the affair, and put new people in place. The years of partying, the snowmobiles, the Corvette, the travel trailer, the family members drawing wages from contractors, and the power over everyone around him were simply forgotten. Two years later, he was back to work for another oil company, and probably doing the same thing, (on a smaller scale).

Posted by: dp | 2010-08-05 11:33:29 AM


If the revenue service can do it, dp, so can the other arms of government. Of course, if they don't bother, they don't bother.

Posted by: Shane Matthews | 2010-08-05 11:57:24 AM



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