)>"Payback time for hole in the wall gang".

)>- headline on a news story last week

A REPORT appeared in English newspapers last week of a British building society, the UK equivalent of a savings and loan, whose hole-in-the-wall cash machines started spewing out money when its computer systems went awry.

According to press reports, the Coventry Building Society lost more than ?1 million ($1.6 million) when its cash machines went on the blink for five days.

"As word spread, people queued through the night to use the machines," one newspaper reported. "Any amount they requested was paid out, regardless of the security PIN number they keyed in. The only limit was the thickness of the wad of notes that would squeeze through the cash dispensers."

So far, so not very interesting. One wonders why it took the company five days to notice that it was bleeding cash, but then that must be the amount of time it takes to spot such things. Since the machinery must only rarely break down, daily investigations are probably not part of the company's routine.

Over the course of the five days, the reports said, individuals were able to return to the machines as often as 20 times to help themselves to the cash.

"When police tracked some of them down, they found that the money had quickly been spent on cars, air tickets and new furniture," the reports said. No surprise there. It seems unlikely that thieves would invest the proceeds of such criminal activity.

One family, a man and his son and daughter, had helped themselves to ?134,410 ($215,000). They were among a dozen people who were charged with, and admitted, pocketing ?285,000 ($456,000) last August, when the cash machines broke down. All three family members were jailed. Five others received community service or compensation orders, which means they had to pay the company, or society, back for their crimes. Sounds reasonable.

The three family members were each jailed for 15 months. Dad is a painter and decorator. His daughter is a 20-year-old student and her brother an administrator, which is probably another word for a clerk.

Mum, who was not charged, told reporters: "We are just an ordinary, hard-working family who thought it would be some extra cash. Who wouldn't have done it?"

Referring to the jail sentences imposed on her family members, Mum said: "I am just in shock. To send my daughter, who has a one-year-old son, to jail for 15 months, is ridiculous, when it was the bank's mistake. It is a victimless crime and the bank gets its money back from insurance anyway."

There we have it: the entire modern philosophy of life. One: If temptation presents itself and you succumb, it's not your fault. Two: Criminals do not deserve to go to jail if they have young children. Three: If you steal from an insurance company, there are no victims.

Obviously, Mum is not just an ordinary, hard-working sort; she is a philospher. Yet from the newspaper reporters to the TV presenters who recounted the story of this "victimless" crime, the assumption was that, because "insurance" would pay, the crime was victimless, and therefore not serious. It was a lark, the sub-text ran, because only the bank and an insurance company would suffer, and they don't count.

I'm not going to dwell on just how wrong-headed that attitude is, but it's worth pointing out that Mum would probably be among the many millions who argue that bank charges and insurance premiums are too high. Not being very bright, Mum wouldn't have realised that the bank or the insurer would have to recoup its loss from its customers.

The victims of this crime are therefore all the other people in Coventry, or around the world, who are customers of the bank or the insurance company. Dad and his lovely children were robbing their friends and neighbours, the true victims of their crimes.

We live in a time when no one takes personal responsibility for his or her actions. Why should they, if we all agree that we are each of us blameless when we break the law or otherwise misbehave? "It was society made me do it," appears to be an adequate defence for just about any kind of behaviour.

How this state of affairs has occurred, I cannot say. It is easier, obviously, to blame a nameless and faceless agency such as society or a bank for all one's ills, and equally convenient to argue that if an insurance company will make good losses, no one suffers.

Both attitudes, however, are anti-social and contribute to the decline in community to values to the point where Margaret Thatcher is being proved right. "There is no such thing as society," she said.

Who wouldn't have stolen more than $200,000 from a bank, Mum asked, as if robbing banks were a perfectly normal day-to-day activity for healthy people to pursue.

O tempora! O mores!