Remedi 20th Anniversary Case Study 1

Offence Type: Burglary

Description of the Offence:

The Offender burgled a Multi Occupancy House stealing numerous items belonging to 4 victims

The Victim/s:

The Victims were 4 students all living in the same shared house.
As Students they stated that they have not got much money so to come home from a night out and find they had ben burgled was ‘devastating’.

Although they got most of their property back it made them all nervous thinking “what if he had managed to take our Laptops”.
The disruption of the burglary and having to sort out statements etc had an impact on their work and studies as they had to take time out to complete all the necessary procedures and to secure their rooms.

They all stated that they felt “nervous” to go out sometimes in case it happened again resulting in 3 of the Students moving to a different property where they now feel a lot safer.
One of the main concerns and a question they wanted to know was “did he know that anyone was in the property at the time he burgled the house”.

They wanted to take part in RJ as they wanted some questions answering and were keen to know whether they knew the person, was it personal, where they targeted and the above question, so they get peace of mind and move on with their lives.

The Offender

The offender admitted that he was on drugs at the time and ‘desperately needed money’. At the time of the offence the offender explained that he had been made homeless the night before and was out drinking when he came upon the property and saw that a window was open. He felt at the time that as he had no where to sleep and no money he would steal the laptops and money but as he was that drunk he left them all behind except a note pad he took which is why he got arrested.
The impact on him was that he received an 11 month sentence plus 3 months of a Supervision Sentence.
He said he had been having feelings of remorse and guilt so wanted to take part in RJ to relieve these feelings. He also stated that he felt he “owed” it to the victims to answers any questions they have so they could all move on.

The Process

We visited the victims who stated that they didn’t want to meet the offender but would really like either their questions answered or a letter explaining why he committed the offence.
 The offender wrote a letter explaining why he committed the offence and also answered the victims questions in the letter.

Feedback

The victims were really pleased with the letter and expressed surprise that they had the opportunity to take part having never heard of RJ. Their feedback was,

Shocked that the letter was hand written so felt it was more personal. Actually after reading the letter felt “sorry” for the Offender.
Could see that he committed the offence out of desperation. They expressed that they felt a lot happier that they were not targeted and said they were pleased he thought no one was in the house.

They said that they want him not to do anything like this again but that they accepted his apology.