My neighbour is a convicted paedophile

Has he served his sentence? I presume he will be on the SO Register. Would you move if a neighbour was convicted of assault/drug offences/theft/fraud? If he isn't bothering you then you can ignore him. As long as he isnt reoffending you will be fine. Pitchforks and torches are not your friends

I agree that you need to have the conversation because he's bound to try to interact with you when he sees you due to you already being friendly. He needs to know that you know what he is, what he did and that he must never speak to you or your kids ever again. One conversation then act like he doesn't exist.

Don't get involved in any 'warnings' on SM. It can come back on you real quick if he gets visitors from angry locals. It's so easy to fan flames with words online.

Be ready for some people in the area to support him, though. We have a couple of wrong 'uns in our village - one professional who was struck off for physically abusing kids and another for what he was watching. Both convicted.

Their wives stayed with them, they have supporters who bought their stories and they have the gall to show their face in the pub and at events.

Everyone knows, many steer clear but not all.

You could move and then find out you have a paedo in your new street. It's that rife. Why uproot your family for someone else's crimes?

This. I'd do the same.
Sadly, there are too many of these monsters still unknown but at least you do know who this one is and can keep away / keep an eye on him. Get all the neighbours to do the same - one thing most people have in common is a hatred of paedos (if they don't agree, I'd keep an eye on them too).

What did he do? There's a huge range here. Man who abuses children or shares child abuse images VS man who downloads regular porn through file sharing and accidentally downloads abuse images. Both would involve a prison sentence depending on the severity on the content. Dont ruin someone's life without knowing all the facts.

This is correct. It’s not an offence to pass on information that is in the public domain - for eg court records which are public, news reports . Privileged information is a different matter.

I'm sorry that you're going through this. A really close friend of mine has recently been convicted too. Obviously haven't spoken since. I had absolutely no idea. Worse, it was little boys, and we all knew him as a straight man (particularly his was-long-term-girlfriend). Again, a suspended sentence. It's shocking. He used to be a teacher! His road was reported in the news article. Yet I know that he's still going to places where children are (he's allowed, just not unsupervised) and as a parent it would make me feel sick if my children were there with him. It's a horrendous situation. He had to remove his social media profiles but has now made a new one under a false name. There's nothing you can do about it, sadly. Just make sure your children are fully clothed when outside (by which I mean in summer with water fights/paddling pools etc).

Look at it this way, if you move you'll have no idea who is a paedophile or not. This way you are aware of the danger and can mitigate against it.

Surely it’s not a crime for you to honestly inform someone that someone is a convicted paedophile? What could the police do about it if you did tell anyone?

I'm not a criminal lawyer, but I can see absolutely no basis on which the police can tell you not to tell people you know your neighbour has been convicted of anything, tbh. Absent some kind of special anonymity being granted to him by the court, and I'm not aware of that being a thing for adults unless in extraordinarily special circumstances, the "risk" of vigilantism is a consequence of horrible offending against children. I would not take vigilante action and I wouldn't encourage it, but telling your neighbours about it is safeguarding, not vigilantism.

It's not even that, though that's a factor, it's the sentencing guidelines.

Sentencing starts at 26 weeks custodial for possession of category A CSAM which can mean immediate custody or can be suspended.

That's why the news report will have said something like 'given a 6 month custodial sentence, suspended for 2 years'.

Which means if he reoffends or doesn't comply with his suspended sentence order, his probation officer takes the case back to court and he goes to prison to serve his sentence there.

If not, he stays out of prison but once he's served his suspended sentence, he'll be on the sex offenders register for however long the judge imposed and have to comply with that till that's spent.

Yeah, no, this is completely wrong. An ex-colleague was convicted of the highest category offences, but had a suspended sentence.

Came here to say this. Can people stop saying 'CP'

What can she do about it then if she 'doesn't need to accept it'?

Move to another area with paedophiles that she doesn't know about?

Demonstratably incorrect.

The sentencing guidelines for possession of the 'worst' category A of CSAM starts at 26 weeks custody which can mean immediate custody or a suspended custodial sentence.

Sorry for you, OP, that’s awful. I’m sure there’ll be plenty of people telling you that paedophiles have to live somewhere and you need to get over it. I don’t have practical advice unfortunately, but you don’t need to accept it.

You are so wrong. These days we know of two local ones. A vicar and a teacher with families who walked away with suspended sentences. The local press reported everything. People here are furious. It's been downgraded as a crime it seems.

No, he wouldn't. Sentences in the UK are incredibly light. I know of a few cases due to my line of work and honestly, paedophiles get away very easily in the UK. The courts and the police don't have resources to care, there isn't enough space in the prisons, and he was "just" watching stuff.

Last year, I found out the same thing regarding a neighbour (via a newspaper article). His wife has stood by him!

I know paedophiles have to live somewhere but knowing they are a stones throw away from your own home and loved ones leaves you feeling very uneasy doesn't it?

Sadly, there is nothing you can do. My dc are older but I do know that many of my neighbours with young dc are extra cautious now.

There will be convicted and unconvicted criminals just about everywhere. Your neighbour could be a domestic abuser. The man over the road could be a serial car thief. The woman at the bottom of the road could be a drug dealer.

As with all things, you remain vigilant and tell your children to avoid him.

In this instance I think I would actually be more worried about the risk of my house being attacked by vigilantes who get the address wrong.

I was told this by a police officer but he said 'within just a few streets'.

None of us know what people are looking at online.

Which is why moving house is futile.

I'd feel exactly the same way.
The scary reality though is that most of us will live near someone like him. The numbers of people caught are horrifying enough, but there'll be many, many more that haven't been yet.

I used to work for a local authority as a minute taker on a child protection team. If people realised how many sex offenders in particular paedophiles live within a two mile radius of them they'd be horrified.