OP, I realise you are trying to steer a middle course, be fair, be kind to your child and his friend, etc. etc., but please remember the comments regarding him becoming ‘normalised’ as a ‘Safe Dad’. Mitigating risk by trying to be present at contacts is all well and good but, as others have said, if he is flagged as Safe Dad now, what happens in the future when your child or a younger sibling meets Safe Dad and suddenly it turns out he isn’t Safe ?
I was sexually abused by the father of my brother’s best friend when I was 12. It happened when his wife, my father, my brother and his mate were all in the house but in other rooms. This was over 50 years ago and I was very naïve. In hindsight, I think if I’d told my father he would have gone down the ‘don’t be stupid, don’t tell lies’ etc. route, after all, the perpetrator was a good bloke….he was the father of my brother’s best friend wasn’t he ? A Safe Dad.
I’ve told very few people about this but it has affected me through my life. I thought I’d buried it but when my brother mentioned, in passing, a couple of years ago, did I remember X as he’d just died ? I was poleaxed. My brother just kept rambling on as is his wont but I finished the call as soon as possible and spent the next 2 hours sobbing. I’m mid-late 60s and it still has the power to affect me to my core.
Please heed the warnings about normalising this man as a Safe Dad. He might be now but I’m afraid the balance of probabilities suggest Sexual Offenders do not reform.
If I was in your position I would ask the Police if I am entitled to more information; attending in person at the Police Station to ask might give you a better feeling of what is possible and gets rid of the emailing to and fro numerous times.
Are you friendly enough with another parent to be confident they would be honest with you about how they feel ? It may be there are a lot of you not wanting to be seen to be ‘unkind’ but are worried.
I think I would veer on the side of seeming a bit odd rather than expose my child to a known sex offender. Oh, and as others have said, his wife has her own problems to steer through but I’m afraid I wouldn’t be 100% sure I would trust her not to have her husband around the children.
Final thought. Looking at photos online is what is often referred to as an ‘entry’ offence but he has also been convicted of what might be considered as a ‘next stage’ offence of grooming. There are three ways an offender can go. Back to non-offending, staying at the same level and escalating. I don’t know which way this man might go but neither do any other posters on here.