Ever met someone you later learned had done something really bad? **Content warning: thread contains mentions of child abuse**

[user2848502016]

Just asking because a few months ago someone I worked with suddenly stopped coming to work... then we found out he had been found guilty of possessing child porn 😬
He hadn't been working with us for long so didn't know him that well but he just seemed like a nice, slightly boring middle aged man! I know you can't ever tell by looking at someone but it just made me think anyone I know could be doing anything behind closed doors.....

Thread titled edited by MNHQ to add a content warning

That's so horrible, Havingaswim 💐. If it's alright to ask, was there anything visibly disturbed about your friend? Did he have any trauma in his past that could have caused him to do something so awful at 12?

I wish I hadn’t read this thread. Hard to look away but it’s so full of distressing stories and bickering

His previous girlfriends said he was abusive, controlling, threatening and preyed on vulnerable women too. Coercive control is more understood and taken into account now than it was back then.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/he-evil-one-murderer-ian-24381811.amp

Not all of his victims were sex workers

Yes - the undertaker who arranged my father’s funeral turned out to be a paedophile who’d abused his own children. Quiet and unassuming.

I would've been guilty of describing it as child pornography (because that is a phrase I've heard, and I didn't think about the correlation between pornography and consent). Seeing the responses from people who have called it out, it makes total sense to me that this phrase should never be used, and going forward I will describe it as it is.

Don’t put yourself in with the other miscreants described here…. I bet no-one here would see this in any way the same as actual criminal acts!

I'll join in with the urging people to call it what it is, child abuse, not porn. Please.

Of many awful revelations when a social worker, the worst was when I worked with a nice family, young couple, five children, for a few years, helping them get on their feet.
The husband went out one night and tortured, raped and murdered an elderly woman.

He appeared as a normal lad. I've never been able to think of anything amiss about him. Nor his family.

I'm a peripheral to the event however
it made me deeply distrust everyone.
I've never been able to forget how he had that capability secretly inside him.

The child wasn't a stranger to us. We knew her family and the older siblings.
The devastation of that family was complete. They are the ones that matter.

To add to my post above.

When I say I'm a peripheral to the event I mean that I feel guilty about any affects its had on me or even mentioning it.
Because the four year olds family suffered an unimaginable loss.

If I may I'll say a little about me.

I can see my ex friend's face in my mind. Friendly helpful etc. It gives me a feeling of dread every time. Inner evil was hidden.

It still scares me that people I meet may be capable of horrific acts and I'd never know.

Obviously the whole town knew about the murder and then the national newspapers printed a lot of dramatic headlines.

However my parents and family never spoke to me about him being my friend or the murder and never have.

Worked with a woman in a nursery, she was fine with the kids

We both become nannies - Found out she was physically abusing the baby

A guy I went to primary and high school with (until he was expelled the second he turned 15 - the then minimum leaving age here, which made it a lot easier for our school to expel him) has gone on to have a long criminal record with multiple assaults, armed robbery, breaking and entering etc etc.

It’s not at all surprising though, my first real memory of him is him smashing his fist through a classroom window in year 6.

Do we work in the same place ? 🫣 was it only possession or was he also trying to have sexual contact with a minor?

This broke my heart.

I lived next door to someone who was later arrested for sexually abusing his stepsons.

It had been going on for years. I was in shock and still think about those poor boys frequently. My children were friends with them and they would all play in our garden together.

They boys were always making excuses if my kids ever wanted to go round their house though, and now I know why.

Never trust anyone with your kids
Never trust kids with your kids
It's a disgusting world we live in

I think I might know these people too. Don't worry I'm not going to write anything identifying about who and where or ask you to - just it would be weird if something so similar had happened more than once - but also totally possible I guess. It was incredibly shocking and sad.

A boy I went to primary school was arrested in his mid twenties for child sexual abuse. He was the smelly kid at school and a bit rough. Looking back I suspect he was being abused himself. No excuse of course, but it often seems to be the way

I don’t want to derail this thread but I’m just amazed at how many of these stories involve child sexual abuse and people being caught with indecent material abusing young children.

I was sexually abused as a child and I just can’t get my head around how anyone can see a child as sexual in any way. My case was a bit different as it was actually a woman who assaulted me on many different occasions. This woman was a neighbour and it struck me how my parents thought she was so kind and caring and trusted me to visit her house as she had her own children. If they were posting on this thread they would probably say that they had no concerns as she appeared like a loving mother, her own children were taken into care after being abused but it took a long time before there were any serious investigations - probably due to her being a woman.

In most cases evil does present as normal but I struggle to find an incentive to abuse children.

I think everyone is capable of murder or violence, during WW2 they used to ask conscientious objectors “what would you do if a German soldier was raping your sister?” The answers mostly involved violence but it’s often seen differently if there is severe provocation. It’s obviously completely different when violence is towards children.

It feels so unnatural that there are so many cases involving kids who are so innocent and vulnerable, is it the vulnerability that makes them a target? Some people blame mental illness for child sexual abuse, there are men who admit to being arroused by children but hate themselves for it and try to seek help, they might never offend.
In some religions and countries it’s normalised for older men to marry young children.
In these cases you can find some sort of reasoning (not excusing it in any way) - mental illness or conditioned to think it’s normal. In most of these stories on this thread there is nothing that can even slightly explain it.

My DP comes from a Middle Eastern country and admits that there is a completely different attitude to treatment of women and girls in his county, he said he hates the fact that he didn’t see a 12 year old girl being forced to marry a 40 year old man as extraordinary until he lived in the uk and considered it properly. It’s not something he would ever do himself he just didn’t have any real awareness, he did try to fight against other issues including womens rights and he had to seek asylum after sharing his views on how corrupt his country is.

This is obviously not the right place to start questioning reasoning behind child sexual abuse and no one here will have the answers as to why it’s so prevalent, I’m just blown away by how common it seems to be with so many responses involving this subject amongst such a small group of people. I guess it’s just made me uncomfortably aware of how little you can trust people, even people you thought you knew reasonably well.

It’s terrifying really , I don’t think he should have been out of prison, ever

As a PP mentioned. Pornography is explicit sexual material. Consent is not implied in the word. As the PP stated, the term revenge porn is used freely and by the Police and the courts and yet there is no consent there or implied.

Someone who works in hospitality, who I see on a regular basis as a customer, done almost 2 decades for murder.

So she didn't actually do anything then? Was covering for someone?

If you read through the post almost every second post complained and said it should be called abuse 🙄

So disheartening how many of these are about child abuse 😔