Staff member stealing

[Oneeyedvic]

A member of staff resigned last week (instantly - no notice) just before I was about to suspend her on full pay pending an investigation for theft. I accepted her resignation and then completed the investigation to find out that it was probably her.

I text her and asked her to come into the premises and gave her a piece of paper with all the details of my investigation on. She immediately broke down in tears and admitted it was her.

She has now written me a letter confirming that she stole it and the reasons behind it.

I don't want to go into the ins and out of what has happened and I am still debating whether to inform the police or not (and don't need advice on that).

Question is: If I do tell the police, can I tell say that I only want her to get a caution (presuming that she has no previous). I really don't want her to have the stress of a court case etc and would be happy for her to just have a caution - do they take into account the 'victims' wants?

[joko]

community support officers may be able to speak to her unnofficially? frighten her a bit?

[grffindoor2011]

I worked with someone a few years ago who did much the same thing. It turned out through investigation that the previous employer had had an incident where the employee had also stolen something but had done nothing about it.

I pushed for the authorities to get involved and justice was done. I'm not interested in the nice way because she was a single parent blah blah, it screws it up for everyone else and they go on thinking they can get away with it.

[ladybirder]

Very unlucky to get caught the first time??????