Express & Star

E&S Comment: Accidental thief is paying the price

One way or another, the taxpayer will get back the money wrongly spent by Michaela Hutchings.

Published

This young mother may not have stolen the £52,000 accidentally deposited in her bank account by a council.

But her spending spree on shoes, sunglasses and other luxuries made her a thief in the eyes of the law.

No law-abiding person would so gleefully profit from someone else's mistake.

Yet incredibly, Hutchings brazenly claimed she had been punished unfairly because of her good looks.

She is lucky that all she ended up with was a demand to pay the money back, a 12-month community order and 150 hours of unpaid work in the community.

Now some of the goods she treated herself to with other people's money are up for sale on the internet auction site ebay.

We hope the police get a good rate and can put this money back into the public purse where it can be put to good use.

Michaela Hutchings and her boyfriend at the time, whose eyes were said to have 'lit up' when he saw her bank balance, represent a greedy sense of entitlement that overrides basic morals among some people.

There are hard working people who would not make that sort of money if they worked every day for two years.

Why did she think it was all right to keep it when it landed in her account?

She claimed that the only guilty person was the one who put it there in the first place.

And that is the crux of the problem.

Hutchings seems to elevate a mistake beyond a deliberate attempt to keep what did not belong to her.

Yes, Lichfield Council did something very foolish and we sincerely hope it will never happen again.

But there is a world of difference between them.

The benefits system was set up as part of a welfare state that supported those in need.

It was created with the best of intentions at a time when Britain was re-building itself following the horrors of war.

Yet in recent years it has been abused by some who have a perverted sense of fairness.

William Beveridge and the other founders of the welfare state would be spinning in their graves at the idea of public money being spent on Gucci and Louis Vuitton bags and Dior sunglasses.

There must be no let-up in the pursuit of those who would steal from the taxpayer. Looks have nothing to do with it.

Congratulations class of 2014

Congratulations to everyone who has collected their A-Level results.

They will be hard pressed to find anyone who has sat these exams and would be prepared to ever do so again.

The first drop in the pass rate for 30 years is nothing to be ashamed of.

Exam boards believe it is down to more students choosing traditional subjects, even though they may be more difficult.

This is actually something that is encouraging - a desire to take courses that can be put to a wide range of potential careers, rather than the easier option.

This country needs more people with a grounding in biology, chemistry, physics and maths and fewer with political studies or other narrow subjects.

Some will go on to university, others to apprenticeships or into work.

Recent employment figures show they are doing so at a good time for the economy.

But it will be up to today's A-Level graduates to keep this country on the right track.

Whatever the results said in the envelope, we hope every student is proud of their efforts and was able to celebrate the culmination of their school or college education without too sore a head today.

We wish every single student every success in whatever they choose to do now.

Today is the first day of the rest of your life.

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