A dirty family secret

[Riveroflight]

My story isn't too pleasant. I discovered a few weeks ago by chance by googling my father's name that he has been convicted of downloading child porn just 6 months ago. I discovered a news article describing him as a pervert and that the judge wanted to lock him away. For some reason he got away with a social order. After this discovery I of course was in shock. Over the years he never made much effort to stay in touch with us and is a cold distant person. However I would never have imagined he was capable of such a thing, that is to download such images.
I have been looking for material on this, to kind of answer questions like why would he be interested in this, and at what point could this have started, etc,etc. I don't really know what my specific questions are all I know is that I want answers. I have told my brother but I will not tell my mother (they have been separated for the last 11 years).
My father has been banned from going near any children for the next 3 years. Of course the implications of this mean that if me and my brother ever have children we are not going to let him go anywhere near them. Its all such a mess really.
We could just disown him. but he is our father....
My father appears a bit autistic. I always thought "Rain Man" was a good portrayal of him to a certain extent. he just could not show any feeling at all.

Sorry to go on and on. I am just struggling really to know what to do next. All I know really is that I have no desire to speak to him about it. Since making the discovery neither of us have contacted him.

Is there anyone here with similar experiences?

[happyland]

I am sorry you are having to go through this. I don't have any experience but didn't want to read and run. I am not sure what you can do with this info. If you aren't close anyway I should imagine it should stay that way, particularly if you have children obv.

[mathanxiety]

No similar experience, but the fact that he didn't share this information with you means you and he are not close, or that he doesn't take this seriously, or that he doesn't really care how you might feel upon finding this out the way you did. No matter what, his relationship with you doesn't seem to matter as much to him as your feelings about him. Why were you googling his name?

If you ever have children, you will feel far less ambivalent about not having contact with him. You will wonder why you ever felt conflicted about this and find the no contact thing a very easy choice to make, no handwringing.

It's said that the average sex offender has committed many more offences than they are ever charged with, and this may be the case with your father too, sad to say, for you and for his possible victims.

I would seriously consider some sort of counselling for yourself to deal with the issues that have been raised in your OP. xxx

[Riveroflight]

Thanks for the responses. I used to chat to him occassionally on MSN and then he suddenly disappeared from the internet (of course I know why now - he is banned from using a computer for 3 years). I was bored at work and was just thinking about him, wondering why he never makes any effort to contact us. I just thought I'll google his name see if I can find any presence of him somewhere. Even though he isn't a good father I still thought about him. Its actually his 60th birthday today which is why I was thinking of him today. I just had a lengthy conversation with my brother. I think it does effect him a bit that he makes no effort at all to ever contact us. He cannot actually ever remember my dad phoning him in his life. We are both trying to emotionally distance ourselves from him and try to accept that that is the way he is. He had a far from normal childhood (dad walking out on him at a very young age and being brought up by a hysterical controlling mother.
I have questions like is he actually into children or was it just some weird hoarding behaviour. His mother was a hoarder, but I guess he has taken it to the extreme with all the images that were found on his computer. It was actually his 2nd conviction, the first was in 2001 but of course we knew nothing of this. I think he got away with a ticking off, all this information I have gleaned from one article of the internet.

Actually b4 all of this came to light I had wondered to myself what men do who have these deviant desires and have no access to children...is this (the C.P) what they have to make do with..

[mathanxiety]

Nobody who is outside of a prison has no access to children.

I don't think this type of thing is in any way related to hoarding, even though he had a lot of images saved. If he now has two convictions for child pornography, then he is probably not being put off his behaviour by the threat of being prosecuted, and probably not seeking any help for this either.

Depressing link.

[ItsGraceAgain]

It's interesting that you have made the connection between hoarding & downloading, and that you think he's autistic. Asperger's has successfully been used as a mitigating defence in child pornography cases - the obsessive/hoarding behaviours being associated with the condition. One judge said something along the lines that nobody, however depraved, would have downloaded and stored such a huge quantity of material unless they had a disorder.

Defence teams have tried to argue that Asperger's offenders were unaware of the signficance of the materials. I don't think this has ever been accepted. Aspies get sexually aroused just like anyone else, and there has to be some reason why this particular type of porn appealed.

Where this leaves you and your brother, sadly, is with a remote and emotionally unavailable father, who has dropped contact with his family and enjoys an illegal & abusive sexual perversion. How very unpleasant for you. You don't sound anywhere near angry enough to me. I really think you'd find counselling helpful: with a complex emotional issue such as this one, guided conversations can be incredibly constructive.

I wonder if your brother would be interested in finding a suitable therapist with you? It might be useful

Take care of yourself, you've had quite a shock.

[ItsGraceAgain]

A counsellor could also help you find the right way to broach this with your mother. It's quite possible the police contacted her as part of their investigations - she might be suffering this knowledge in silence.

[Riveroflight]

Thanks Math and Grace.

You may be right Grace regarding my mother. The main reason why I haven't told my mum is that she has had 2 strokes and I fear the stress of this revelation could make her ill again :s plus she is caring for her manic depressive husband.

I would be interested to know however if she knows about it already. I am sure any mother would be horrified to hear the father of her children would do such a thing.

What a mess. I am always very jealous of friends who have "normal caring" fathers . I often look at well balanced people and think they must have normal fathers. Of course this isn't necessarily the case, i do know that..

[keepstrong]

Riveroflight...am so sorry to hear your troubles, am sorry I have no experience of what must be going on in your life...

You say if you or your brother ever have children...what brought you to mn?, please dont take offence at my question, am genuinely interested, are you a CM? its just to share such a story and be so honest on a forum like this seems very candid and brave...by brave I mean it is such a difficult topic to talk about

[Riveroflight]

Good question. I have been lurking on here for a month or so reading how supportive the people on here are. I thought I would see what you guys would say about my situation. I have looked a little bit on the internet for support but got a bit scared of typing child P.. into a search engine.

We have a counselling service at work, i may try them.

[wildstrawberryplace]

"We could just disown him. But he is our father"

Hmmm. Not saying it is necessarily right in your situation, but sometimes people do cut off contact for all sorts of reasons. Despite lots of difficulties, I reluctantly admit that my stepfather was a better father to me than my own dad, for various reasons.

Also, my mum and I did have a child sexual abuser in our family, and we did disown him. (Well, most of us did - others, including his wife, preferred to carry on as normal and sweep it under the carpet and make out that we were collectively loonies. Needless to say we have nothing to do with any of them now).

The point is that male family figures who are in a loving and respectful relationship with you not only fulfil certain duties of love and care, but at a most basic level, they don't harm you, either physically or emotionally, deliberately or otherwise.

If you feel that you or your future children would be in anyway unsafe as a result of what you've found out, I don't think it is a step too far to stop actively keeping up contact. Far from it.

This happened to a friend actually - he found out that his dad was being sent to prison for downloading and copying indecent images of children. It affected him very badly and he did break off contact. I think his sister and brother did not break off contact, nor their mother.

[mathanxiety]

Did you always feel you had to take care of your mum and spare her feelings, or is this just since she had her strokes (again, very sad for you) or since she got involved with someone who has problems that need a lot of her attention?

[Riveroflight]

Well I was about 15 when my mum had her first stroke and 19 when she met her current husband. I am not sure how long I have wanted to take care of her feelings, I guess I must have felt like that since she became ill.

[mathanxiety]

That's quite young to have a reversal of roles, if such a thing happened, on top of a father who didn't seem to want closeness.

Do you have any reliable parent figure in your life?

[Riveroflight]

I don't actually. Maybe that is why my first boyfriends were a lot older than me (father complex). I have managed to get over that fortunately and my current bf is a couple of years younger than me.

Having said that I wouldnt exactly say my mum is unreliable. she more than makes up for the absent father. She makes a lot of effort to communicate with me. I get on well with her husband too so I have a replacement father.

[mathanxiety]

It sounds as if you and your brother are close and maybe the two of you will need to co-ordinate your approach, or at least make a conscious effort to keep up respectful communication, as you decide what to do about keeping up contact with your father.

One of the sad side effects of a situation like this is what it does to family members in their relationships with each other, not just with the abusive member.

[Affected]

Hi River, I've been a bit slow in responding to your message. I've been on MN some time, but as you will understand, have changed my name for this.

It must have been a shock to find out that your father was downloading images of child abuse (sorry, but it's not child pornography). This happened in our family to my sister and BIL seven years ago. At the time they had two small children. I actually still don't understand why my sister has stayed with him, but she had him back after some time apart.

It severely affected me (and we didn't have children at the time) and actually, I'm not sure that I'm over it all now (I know this sounds selfish, but we were close and I thought of him as a brother). I feel I have to keep being there for my sister and the children.

He blamed depression and various other things at the time, but I still feel that there is no excuse for 'child abuse by proxy'.

It is a very very scary thing to find out that someone you know has done this. I would second trying to see a counsellor as even just being able to put your feelings into words can be helpful - a friend who is a priest helped me through the worst of my situation and I don't know how I would have coped without him.

It's such a long time ago that I can't remember the sorts of key words I put into search engines to find the information I needed. However, the NSPCC might be a place to start looking at information.

Just to say that you are not alone and I hope you are able to get some support.