HOW low can you get? Do you have no conscience? Did you really need that money that badly?

Those are remarks I address to the person (you know who you are – and so do we) who stole a charity collection tin from the League of Friends shop at Musgrove Park Hospital in Taunton.

Regular readers of this column may know that I am President of the League of Friends. So I feel a personal hurt that someone could walk away with the tin, which probably only had about £20 in it.

When our shop manager reported the theft to the police, she ended up speaking to an answering machine which had those infuriating “Press one for this, press two for that…” options.

At the point where she answered “No” to the question “Do you have the culprit with you now?” she was immediately advised to hang up and complete an online form to get a crime reference number.

So no urgency to deal with the crime – even though the shop had CCTV, which clearly identified the culprit. Like I said, we know who you are. But will the culprit be brought to justice?  That’s the important question.

In 2014 new legislation was introduced allowing “shoplifting offences” where the amount taken is below £200 to be dealt with in a different way (essentially police led prosecutions) which was supposed to “improve the efficiency of the criminal justice system”.

But that’s led to people suggesting such offences are being trivialised, even ignored.

So I rang the police to ask what they’d be doing about the hospital charity box theft – given the CCTV ought to give them an “easy win”. The response was encouraging: "The CCTV footage WILL be examined in an attempt to identify any person or persons responsible. And we’d like to hear from anyone with more information.”

Now we wait (in hope) to see if anything positive transpires. 

To some this offence may seem trivial – I don’t see it that way.  And if the person responsible gets away with it, might that encourage them to try something a little “bigger” next time?

To that person I say: Just bring the tin back, before the authorities catch up with you.  Who knows it might even make you feel better … ’though I doubt it.