There is a paedophile living on the next road to me.

[Wellthisisjustfuckingbrilliant]

Found out today through the medium of Facebook. Pleaded guilty to downloading cat A images and received a suspended sentence/put on the sex offenders register.

He lives almost next door to a play park.

At the moment there is plenty of pitch forks at the ready from the neighbours from what I can tell. But can anyone tell me seriously how this will be policed/monitored?

There was uproar in my town recently as one was convicted and released to his home, which backs onto an infant school playground. The playground is within full view of his windows and his garden only separated by a chain link fence. He was caught after a parent reported that a man in a garden had said inappropriate things to their child whilst at school. He owns the house and is still there apparently. The school has put up another fence between the gardens and the playground, but it's frightening. They shouldn't be anywhere near schools.

The reason addresses are published for those convicted of any crime (not just sex crimes) is that they are already in the public domain (courts are open to the public) and more importantly, giving an address prevents confusion with anyone else living in the same town. Just imagine the absolute uproar if John Smith of Burnley was convicted of raping a child and you were coincidentally called John Smith and lived in Burnley.

Publication of the details of offenders is a great deterrent to others thinking of committing crime. Nobody wants their name and address in the paper for being a criminal.

The man the OP mentions will have been placed on the sex offenders’ register which means he will have to sign in at a police station regularly and will have to notify officers of any new bank cards or any new devices he has in his home. He will likely get the odd visit from a supervising officer. As far as actual physical monitoring goes for someone on the SOR, that’s about it. There’s no electronic tag system as standard.

Separately, he may have to complete perpetrator courses as part of his sentence and keep in touch with probation officers but that’s really a relationship where he’ll be expected to be honest about his thoughts and feelings.

Paedophiles aren’t ‘placed’ anywhere. They already live there. And most places in the UK award within half a mile of a school or playground.

I’ve been covering court for two decades and I can honestly say there’s several in every village or town. You’re much better off knowing where they live because they don’t come with tattoos on their heads.

I remember watching a program years ago and it said the amount of paedophiles (can’t spell) there are in Britain is astonishing and would be the equivalent of having one in each London underground tube train carriage. So how ever many passengers one of those holds, there would be one of them in the population 😓

And that's the ones that are known about... scary!

Good. You know who and where he is. You know who to avoid. You should be pleased. It's the ones you don't about that you have to worry about. Let's just hope this doesn't result in people getting out their pitchforks so that he moves somewhere else where people don't know who he is. That's more worrying.

@sporky

OP as PP's have said he will be risk assessed by police/probation and managed accordingly.

As for living by a park, etc. Plenty do, because they own or private rent. It is difficult for housing associations/council to relocate offenders just based on their convictions as their are rules housing must follow.

SOPOs no longer exist, Sexual
harm prevention orders replaced them. It's highly unlikely anyone convicted now will be prevented from accessing the internet because it is not compatible with modern life, but their internet use can be monitored. Other prohibitions can be made but should be relevant to their offending behaviour.

Really that's interesting re the internet, I spoke to someone in the course of my work who told me he was not permitted to use the internet, that was maybe a year ago. Perhaps it is a leftover from old convictions?

@MoroSun

There are probably some local vigilante groups you could make aware

How would that be helpful?

They shouldn't be placed anywhere. Should be put on a rocket to Mars.

They are everywhere OP . As PPs' said , you would be shocked at how many are around us . Also worked in this field and was stunned when I became aware of how many there are among us in the community . As PP said ,it's the one's that haven't been caught that worry me . All you can do is keep your children as safe as you can (which I'm sure you do anyway ) and the usual safeguarding precautions . We can't hound them out as they will just go underground .

He won't be the only one, and probably will have someone living closer. Do nothing different to what you already do.

It’s not a question of where he was placed - I assume he was already living there and owns or rents the house? Offenders have to live somewhere and at least you know where this one is. Children are far more at risk from people known to them in some way than from strangers so all you can do is keep the lines of communication open with your kids and keep having the safety talks....

Last week there was a similar Facebook uproar about someone who had come to live in a particular street in our village. Yesterday whilst out walking, I noticed a house in that street where every window had been broken over the weekend. I don't agree with doing that and yet in all honesty I couldn't muster any sympathy for him either. I just felt complete indifference to the stress that must be causing him.

It's sickening that these people exist but sadly they do and at least you know where he is and you know to avoid him.

I work with the effects of child sexual abuse so I'm not easily shocked. However in a town I lived in a man with convictions for downloading many images in all categories continued to run his business.... a computer repair shop opposite a nursery! I am of the view that they need to live somewhere etc as long as they are monitored but running a computer repair shop seems barmy to me! This guy didn't keep a low profile either and was later in the press voluntarily for some issue with a cash point and mice eating the money.

@thenightsky

I was watching that programme that was on recently - the disappearance of Shannon Matthews. I think one of the police officers on the team said that, at the time, there were something like 2,000 known sex offenders in a 20 mile radius of Shannon's home.

To be fair, a 20 mile radius is a massive area!

@Fundays12 MAPPA in England is about safeguarding, but not in the way you describe and I've never known Police Scotland visit offenders twice a day either. I'm guessing you don't actually work for the police.

@RavingAnnie quite possibly from an older conviction, although many of them were taken back to court and rewritten as it was too limiting and stated case law doesn't agree with it, some areas may have left them.

[quote NerrSnerr]@WeatherwaxLives The OP said he downloaded images so the victims are likely not to be known to him.

OP there'll be more paedophiles in your local area. You just won't know about them.[/quote]
I was responding to PPs post that their local press identified someone as having abused their own child, not OPs post.

@DinoHat

Realistically if he's downloading others' images, he's no risk to local children and the risk is certainly no higher than if you didn't know about him.

That is not true - the danger is that he has a sexual interest in children and him using images does not mean he will not contact offend.

That said, OP you know about him so he poses very little danger to you.

This, exactly!

I’m surprised people are that naive to think that offenders won’t go on to commit contact offences, especially if given the opportunity by close contact to children!

There are many men that have been caught looking at photos of young children via their work computers. Most schools have caught a member of staff looking and they've been removed.

There must be men like this everywhere. I don't imagine the resources are available to police/monitor them sufficiently.

What is it and why does it happen? Is it preventable? Is it more prolific now because of the internet and easy access or has it always been like this and people are just more aware? Since having children these thoughts keep me awake at night, just, whyyyyyy? I honestly don't think I'll ever let me children go to a sleep over. I had a friend who's father was really strict she was only allowed to sleep at my house (mum was a single parent) she was never allowed to come on days out with me and my dad and i completely understand why now, something must have happened to her dad as a child and he was scared it was happen to his daughter.

"Most schools have caught a member of staff looking and they've been removed."

Says who?

Sex offenders names and streets and photo s are in out local paper.2 near me.but a policeman friend told me this town is full of them and druggies.
There is a list you can look at.can't remember the name of it.I found 5 men I know who are on it.2 in.my street alone.

He might not still live there, and might never have lived there.

I was following a court case recently and one of the principal offenders was said to be “of x town in NI” when he had been extradited from the town where he had lived , worked, bought houses and land and had a wife and kids in RoI.

@sporky

"Most schools have caught a member of staff looking and they've been removed."

Says who?

Sorry, should be they've caught a member of staff using the computers inappropriately or for illegal online activities resulting in being dismissed for misconduct.

The NUT had a report about it and how some schools ICT systems weren't filtering access vigorously enough. Teachers get banned from teaching if they are caught looking at indecent images of children.

About 100 teachers get banned every year for a range of misdemeanors (TES). Indecent images is about 5%. Sexual misconduct was about 40% in 2016 but has fallen rapidly. There is another category - breach of trust or boundaries which is about 25% and seems to include inappropriate relationships with children and indecent images also.

Figures from an American 2017 survey suggests that 50% of men (ages 18-30) viewed porn at work within the last 3 months, this increased to 75% in the older age range (ages 31-49).

He still lives there, he owns the house so hasn’t been placed there. He also owns a particularly obnoxious car so I don’t imagine it will be too long before someone throws a brick through the window.

This happened where I used to live. A convicted paedophile was released from jail and returned to his own house. There was a lot of vigilante behaviour stoked up by anonymous letters posted to all neighbours. People threw bricks through the windows, shouted abuse at him when he went out, etc, and a couple of neighbours were cautioned by police for threatening him. He ended up living in this house with most of the front windows boarded up, and (from what I heard) just nipped out after dark to get food, etc. We moved about 3 or 4 years later, so I don't know what the eventual outcome was. I can't imagine he ever made peace with the neighbourhood.

My attitude was as pps have said, I know this man is a danger to children but I also know exactly where he is, which makes him less of a danger. If my children had been the age where they could go out alone I could have warned them about this house and avoiding the man who lived there. But it's likely there were other paedophiles living nearby, and also where I live now (or people who are dangerous in other ways). Not knowing about them surely makes them more of a risk - maybe it's the nice guy next door, or the friendly family who invited my kids over to play in their paddling pool.

Criminals (of all sorts) have to live somewhere and if you know where that is you can avoid them or look out for them. Objecting often drives them into hiding, because I doubt many would choose to live like our neighbour, with boarded windows and not being able to leave the house most of the time. They'd move somewhere where they weren't known and start again. And there are plenty of others living all over the place who haven't been caught. What do you do about those? I think we all just have to have a sensible attitude to risk. Teach kids to be assertive and aware of their boundaries, what to do if they are scared or worried, and find a balance between trust and fear. It's not easy, but it's actually easier in the small number of cases where you know exactly who/where/what is the problem.