To Feel Uncomfortable Continuing This Friendship.

If she's a good friend I would be honest with her and say someone has told you about her husband's conviction and that you're extremely disturbed. Give her the chance to tell you what she knows. Then you can make an informed decision whether to continue the friendship or not.

How do you know the girl wasn’t their sister? The newspaper reports couldn’t have said whether she was or wasn’t. Nothing that enables people to identify the victim of a sex crime (or a child victim of any crime) can be reported.

When a news report says someone has been convicted of sexually abusing ‘a child’, in most cases that child will have been a child in their immediate family.

she married and then went on to have children with someone who had been found guilty of this

So he was reported for a historical sex offence. He went to prison for it. And after that your friend married him?

I would distance myself from the friend. She has piss poor judgement. She married and had children with a sex offender who was found guilty of the sexual abuse of a child. I wouldn't allow any child of mine to be anywhere near her. Her own kids should be taken off her. I hope she and her sex offender husband are being heavily monitored by social services.

I would be very cautious too. Most 15 year olds aren’t normally attracted to 11 year old girls so it would not have been any kind of normal romantic relationship and it’s hard to know if his tastes and internal thinking has changed over time.

It is exceptionally difficult to get a historical sexual offence to trial. Let alone getting a guilty verdict. the re must have been overwhelming evidence that the perpetrators were guilty.

personally I wouldn’t feel comfortable being around someone who had committed that crime. Even if they were a 15yo child at the time. And, after all, they are still on the sexual offenders register.

I’d be distancing myself from this friend. And making it clear that, while she is deserving of kindness and compassion, I am not the person to offer her that.

You haven’t talked about your relationship with him. If you don’t have one then there should be no issue. You continue your friendship with your friend and stay well away from him. Meet in neutral places keep it on your terms.

you can reconsider your friendship on the basis of her judgments but you shouldn’t based on his crimes. I think these are two different things.

@Molone Apologies if I have missed this info but does your friend know about his conviction? As it was him and his brother who abused the same child that is seriously messed up & there is no way would I be putting my family anywhere near individuals like that. No friendship is more important than the safety of my family.

I would not have my children around him. And I would probably find it difficult to speak to him if I'm honest.
Your friend however, would entirely depend on if she knew before she had children with him. Was he still on the register when they got together?
Him and his brother went to prison for sexually abusing an 11 year old. Horrific for that poor woman to live with 😔

How do you know this is true? If so, how bad was the offence? What's the source? Don't blindly believe what might be an untruth. In any event, I would not drop my friend (or even consider to dropping her).

I would step away, personally.

Irrelevant what he went through. He abused a child enough to go to prison.

This

very honestly…I wouldn’t want myself or my children within a mile of him and would be cooling the friendship.

It might be harsh but I wouldn’t care what the mitigating factors were - my families safety is more important than being “nice” “kind” or “fair”

he is a paedophile.

You are being unfairly judgemental of your friend ( and her husband IMO)

I could not cut off a friend for something her husband did when he was 15.

Spot on, this hits the nail on the head!

So what you are talking about is sibling childhood sexual abuse.
this is a massively under reported crime and the devastation on the victims isn’t any different from any other childhood sexual abuse

no I wouldn’t be comfortable staying friends with a person who knew that and chose to set up a life and have children.

I would be very very careful believing something from an unofficial source. You don’t know how accurate what you’ve been told is.

Well, I would be asking myself why I consider my friend to be “guilty by association” when she didn’t commit any crime. The second question I would be asking myself if I really believed in rehabilitation of offenders.
Ah, I would also be questioning if a “mutual friend” has correct information and if so, what gave them the right to disclose this confidential fact that they had no business to share. So they would be the first friend to be dropped, to be honest.
As a matter of fact I am a firm believer of rehabilitation and I don’t believe crimes of one person reflect badly on their friends and family.
Also a sexual offence could be as simple as going for a wee around a playground and being spotted by a youngster.
Having said that, you can end the friendship for whatever reason you want.