Shut eyes during daylight robbery
**Last week, media attention was firmly focused on events across the Atlantic – even a blind hermit with an ear infection could not have failed to notice that Mr Obama had managed to secure another term in office. Closer to home, you could perhaps be forgiven for overlooking a more modest slither of news – one that left a wry smile etched across my face.**
The story involves a woman named Margaret Bailey. The former dinner lady, 51, was convicted of stealing from the school where she worked, and jailed for two-and-a-half years. Over the last decade, Ms. Bailey siphoned off around £90,000 to fund property purchases in the US and Bulgaria. £90,000 that had been set aside for ‘school trips, meals and Christmas parties.’
The first issue to address here is the sum. £90,000? Supposedly for school meals? I think not. That would leave an awful lot left-over for the Christmas party. Where was it held—The Ritz? Something doesn’t add up.
Secondly, how on earth did no-one notice? Ms. Bailey was not pocketing a fiver from petty cash. She wasn’t even pinching a twenty pound note on the sly. £90,000 is a huge amount of money. Surely as the school meals deteriorated into a farce (‘Oh great, soup again…’), someone must have realised something was amiss.
Finally, why so much? Clearly, the larger the sum, the more conspicuous the theft—could she not have held fire after pocketing a grand? Ten grand? Surely she must have realised that her crime wasn’t exactly perfect. £90k gone AWOL and a dinner lady with several new houses hardly requires the deductive powers of Sherlock Holmes—Scooby Doo could probably hazard a guess.
A pattern of large-scale theft from employers appears remarkably common. Head teacher and former nun Colleen McCabe, 50, was convicted earlier this year of stealing £500m. Jessica Harper, an employee at Lloyds Bank, stole £2.4m.
Bank clerk Rachael Martin stole £46k to fund a boob-job. After stealing nearly £50k, do you attempt to cover your tracks? Keep a low profile for a while? Miss Martin had the op, then proudly flaunted her new ‘purchases’ on Twitter: #mastercriminal, #fuckthepolice. These thieves ‘fund a lavish lifestyle’ as if no-one is going to notice.
You don’t kill a man and then wander around wearing his blood-spattered clothes and waving the murder weapon. I’ll conclude with a word of warning: you can steal as much money as you want, but, clearly, you can’t buy common sense.
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