The Thief

I’m only going to touch on how Sandra’s stealing affected myself. I’ve written in the memoirs about the first inclination of her stealing, which was from her mother.

Stealing my wages

My first experience was shortly after we had arranged to have a joint bank account. I was employed with Tayside Police at the time, my salary being paid fortnightly into our account on the Thursday evening of every second week. I would visit the bank on the Friday after they were paid and take out an amount that would cover the two weeks until my next pay day. One Friday I visited the bank and was informed there were no funds in the account and that Sandra had gone to the bank and cleared the account out. When I spoke to her it transpired she had taken every penny and spent it, granted some on shopping. In a domestic situation 50% of a joint bank account belongs the each party, no how much each person inputs. In this case my pay was far greater than Sandra’s. Sandra effectively stole from me. The following day I closed the account and opened one in my own name, forcing Sandra to do the same. Sandra was bitter about that for a long time, not because we no longer had a joint account but because she knew I didn’t trust her. I had good reason for my mistrust, particularly given the knowledge of her thefts from her own mother.

Stealing from my Aunt

Sandra also stole from my father’s sister Hazel. Hazel was an extremely close friend to Sandra. I had introduce them to one another at the beginning of our relationship. Hazel always acknowledged Sandra’s birthdays and Christmas as if she was one of her family. 

As Adam, Stephanie and Sophie became older Hazel would look after them to allow us to go out.

One day, when Sophie was at the crawling stage, Sandra visited Hazel with Sophie. Hazel’s house was open plan and Sophie went missing as Sandra and Hazel conversed in the kitchen. Sophie had crawled upstairs and Sandra went looking for her. She found Sophie in Hazel’s bedroom. Hazel had a considerable amount of electricity vouchers lying on a bedside table. Sandra use electricity vouchers to pay our own electricity bill so took Hazel’s vouchers. I didn’t find this out until after our divorce but Hazel did tell certain members of our family. She refused to tell me at the time and refused to report Sandra to the police. Another close friend shafted and a friendship ruined.

Credit Card Fraud

In early to mid 2001 I noticed my credit card statements were being printed onto white paper rather than the standard corporate colour designs. It was odd but I didn’t take much notice. I no longer used the cards and would just file the statements away without checking them. One day I was home at the time the postman came and Sandra made a bee line for the post, putting an envelope addressed to me in her housecoat pocket. She made it into a joke and gave me the envelope. This time it was a credit card statement printed in the standard corporate colours. 

The statement was a shock. £5000 hade been spent. I called the credit card company and asked them to send me statements going back several months which they did. The statements were full of ATM withdrawals and spends with catalogue companies such as Freemans. The withdrawals were made at ATMs at places such as Perth, Blairgowrie and Meigle. All areas where Sandra had been working in nursing homes.

I confronted her about it and she admitted it. Obviously worried she asked what I was going to do. I paid the debt off for her and told her we would have to put it behind us. I would like to point out here, I doubt if an abusive husband would have been so calm about the situation and dealt with it the way I did.

In addition to the credit card fraud the following four cheques amounting to £1431 were stolen from me by Sandra and written out to herself. Her name, written in the payment line, is in her own handwriting and is too tidy to be mine. The signature isn’t mine.