Monday 15 October 2012

Guilty until proven innocent

There is a strong moral in the following true story.

It covers events that took place some 30 years ago in, coincidentally, the Welsh seaside town of Aberystwyth, and it concerns a company employee who was entrusted, each week, to deposit the business takings of several thousand pounds, in the night safe of the local bank.

On one occasion, his employers noticed that the takings for week X had not been deposited and they asked him why.

He told them that he had posted the bag containing the money into the night safe as normal.

Enquiries with the bank showed that they had not received the cash.

The police were called in and, following an investigation, arrested and charged the employee concerned, despite his protestations of innocence.

He was eventually brought to trial and sentenced to a prison term. During his spell inside his wife left him in disgust along with their small children.

After serving his term he was released but, due to his criminal conviction, he could not find work and ended up on the streets.
All of his friends and work colleagues disowned him.

He drifted on a downward spiral until, after a couple of years of unrelenting misery, he took his own life.

Some ten years after his death the bank concerned underwent renovations including a new fascia.
The old bank night safe was demolished and, in the course of the work a wallet full of cash was discovered lodged in a crevice within the shute.

7 comments:

  1. Richard,
    An excellent post-just shows in the light of the recent revelations of late in TS sanario that No one has the right to judge anyone-don't throw stones in glasshouses and all that!


    Michael.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for this salutory post Richard.

    ReplyDelete

  3. Thank you Brian and thank you Michael. God bless. Richard

    ReplyDelete
  4. God bless the poor man, and may God have mercy on all of us.

    - Mack in Texas

    ReplyDelete
  5. Terrible story, Richard, and good that you have told it. God bless!

    ReplyDelete
  6. That is a terrifying and very sad story. Yet sad cases make bad law.
    I am morally certain that some people will jump on the bandwagon vis-vis the late Jimmy Savile, especially now that the question of compensation is being mooted.
    Nevertheless there are, it would seem, many identified people who have made serious allegations against him. I am not going to sit in judgment on them by suggesting that they are liars. If anything I am inclined to believe them - based on what Newman calls "certainty arising from the convergence of probabilities". I do not share your certainty that Savile is/was innocent. May he rest in peace. I

    ReplyDelete

  7. EFPE - Father I am in no way convinced of Jimmy Savile's innocence. I just believe that people should not be judged by media reports and hearsay which is all that it is at present. As and when a police enquiry takes place and gives a verdict, then is the time to admit either innocence or guilt.

    ReplyDelete