Strange neighbour or am I being harsh.

[Readytoevolve]

So here are the facts.

We are new to our estate. One neighbour has taken a keen interest in being friendly and asking a million questions, he’s very nosey.
He loves telling neighbours he knows us and is over familiar towards us when other neighbours are around.
One day I was walking and I saw him walking towards me after a run, he spotted me, ran again then stopped as though he was just stopping for the first time. Quite performative.
He has a DD 3 similar age to mine and they do like to play outside (supervised) When he speaks to my children he tends to get up close to talk to the them, in their face sort of.
One day he took my DD’s hand and spun her around like he was dancing with her, but did so vigorously and she fell, he didn’t care or comment. He takes a keen interest in what she’s wearing and will touch her clothes to ask what’s that picture type things on your top. Happened maybe 3 times.
His daughter is a lovely kid, but incredibly withdrawn in my opinion.
His wife is lovely but I have never seen her out with her DC without him, ever. They walk to collect the children from nursery every single day as a family, I mean nothing wrong with that, but unusual as I don’t see anyone else do that. I feel like he can’t leave his wife to talk to anyone else without supervision.
He attends DD’s and his DD’s baby ballet class to watch as a full family unit, where as I just take DD and DH and other DC stay at home.

I don’t get a good vibe. Am I being harsh or should a man ever touch or dance with another child. When it happens I feel frozen. Like, he’s my neighbour. I can’t say don’t touch my kid cause what he’s doing is somewhat harmless but also in my opinion crossing a boundary. I can’t start an argument. As it stands, our children will attend same school, we live in the same estate, we’re pretty stuck with them. And he’s always outside walking passed our house.

Any thoughts?

Oop, and there's the drip feed.

The running thing could be ND social awkwardness. Not necessarily predatory.

Haha right? But of course we believe this persons view of this man and his actions to be 100% correct? A person that doesn’t think an autistic person can have a HT wife or work in a medical field?!? This view point changes everything about this post for me, I couldn’t trust the way the OP views anything if they’re that out of touch.

OP you are 100% right that this is grooming behaviour and he will try and weedle his way into your daughters life.
Don’t worry about seeming rude, he doesn’t care about you, you’re just an obstacle
A simple please don’t touch my child in a firm voice and whisk her away should warn him.
Keep a wary eye if you see other children around him/his house.

I wouldn’t want some random neighbour bloke touching my DC’s clothes. Ask him to stop.

Yes I think you better go make sure the whole village knows that you think your neighbour is a predator. Maybe a megaphone will do the trick, makes sure you tell them he can’t possibly be autistic because he has a well paid and responsible job 😂

Years ago when my DC were young, there was a man who was very involved in the local RC church, who I felt was way too involved with the RC school parent network. He was single and childless, but always offering to babysit, was buying adolescent teenagers expensive gifts. At a kids party, he wanted to take my 5 year old DS away to change him into his swimming trunks.

I thought long and hard, but I phoned Social Services to express my concerns. I didn't make any accusations, just told them what I had seen. I felt that even if his behaviour was innocent, he was putting himself at risk, if nothing else.They listened. Nothing ever came to light, so perhaps he was just a quirky chap who liked children's company and missed having them himself. I won't ever know but I have no regrets

Mumsnet is often very harsh, but in opposing ways.

Harshness 1) You are terrible for not having challenged your neighbour. But then we are socialised to avoid trouble by being polite and non-confrontational. Look here is this respectable, friendly, middle-aged, professional man with his equally respectable wife and child. What a close 'little family' they are! A direct challenge is likely to be met with denial. 'I was just being friendly. Some people see sex everywhere. Do you have any unresolved mental health issue?' A child may be frightened by a direct conflict taking place in front of her, and it's not easy or even appropriate to explain to someone small about grooming. Meanwhile you have to continue to live in the same community. So stepping back and taking time to reflect is a reasonable thing to do.

Harshness 2) The 'Oh, they are probably neurodiverse. I am neurodiverse too and I suffer terribly because people don't understand what a nice person I am and how hard it is dealing with my condition.' This directs all the sympathy away from the man who is doing inappropriate touching, and diverts it from the child and the mother. Let's look at who really has the most power out of the three people in this situation.

• Man. Good job, good income. Social status. Physically the largest and the strongest. Also quite likely to be the most believed when there is any difference of opinion. Wife appears to be an ally and she too has status in community.
• Mother. Probably not such a high income as currently caring in part for young child. If there is a male partner he is less likely than the mother to have personal experience of being groomed/inappropriate touching. May not be physically strong. Knows that whatever she does some people will judge her.
• Child. Only real power is to scream if someone touches her and she doesn't like it. But as a girl will probably have already accepted that bigger people will hug her and kiss her and knows - via T-shirts - that girls are supposed to be kind, and that it's wrong to hit people.

I would suggest that the hierarchy is very much in the order given. The mother is quite literally caught in the middle. I hope that some of the responses in this thread will be useful to her.

You asked if you were being too harsh. Posters gave their opinions. It's black and white. You don't seem to like certain opinions so I'm not sure why you asked. It's a waste of time.

@Readytoevolve This man is being grossly inappropriate.
Stand up for your child.
I had to be very firm indeed with a “ Friendly man” DO NOT be embarrassed.

If your daughter is abused in any way you will not forgive yourself.

Speak out for her sake.

@Readytoevolve If you aren’t going to protect your daughter, by telling this man to BACK OFF , then why ask at all?

@Weddingbells6 Exactly! As a parent of a DC with autism this comment really enraged me

It is hard to be rude to people, because of how were conditioned. But I think "It's not OK to touch children, you know" and then taking her away would do the trick. Although I think if it were me, and I'm very polite, I would be so enraged that I wouldn't be able to resist barking "Don't touch her!" at him. Better to be proactive than live to regret not saying anything. If he is innocent, maybe it will make him think twice about how he's perceived.

There are a lot of medical professionals that are on the spectrum, just because someone is on the spectrum does not mean to say they are not capable of learning, they believe Einstein was on the spectrum, however again as an adult on the spectrum if the neighbour was then he is an adult and would learn not to behave that way.

Now how on earth did being on the spectrum come into to this conversation? Can a guy not be a predator without being on the spectrum?

I sometimes feel that its a minimisation of abhorrent behaviour and that others should tolerate it. Maybe a denial. All very odd. Other times I wonder if there are paedos and their apologists gaslighting everyone so that they doubt what they see and feel and so that they can get away with more.

Or he is completely controlling and that's why the child is withdrawn and the wife is not allowed to go out anywhere without him? Why would they not both be working just because they are on the school run together? Even if he was on the spectrum then why would his wife not be working? You see you could make up a few scenarios and they could all be wrong!

People are being polite, because we (especially women) are socialised from a young age to ignore our boundaries and put up with our own discomfort to spare other peoples feelings (especially mens!).

Sit down, be quiet, smile nicely and don't make a fuss.... be a good girl.

OP, put a stop to this at once! Regardless of whether this chap is in some way dangerous or not it's a rubbish example to set to your daughter. Model having strong boundaries around bodily autonomy and asserting yourself firmly when something happens that you don't like.

No means no, and you can and should tell him that. In front of her, with none of this wishy washy 'oh she doesn't like being touched' meaning it's her being sensitive. It isn't. It's him being inappropriate. Who cares if you offend him? It's not like you want to be his friend anyway.

On a separate note, I'm autistic. I don't personally touch others clothes or person. Lots of us actually don't like touching unfamiliar people, I don't like people being tactile if they're not my family. But, it's not outside the realms of possibility in terms of why he's done it. If it were a child I'd say it's more likely. Regardless, it doesn't matter,

He's clearly able in terms of being able to function as a husband/father and he's old enough to know better. All autistic people sometimes make social faux pas, miss social cues, mis-read situations and do things that seem/feel perfectly innocent to us but either offend people or make them uncomfortable in some way. Unless you're an autistic adult who is also cognitively impaired and/or with a learning disability/disabilities on top (which seems highly unlikely in this case) then once someone's said to you 'don't do that, I don't like it' then you know very well not to do it again.... y'know... just like everyone else does.

Autistic does not equal stupid, or an excuse to repeatedly do things that are inappropriate or make other people feel uncomfortable 'because autism'.

Absolutely nailed on the head!

@Oioisavaloy27 Well... I do tend to be rather direct! Fancy that, hey!

How are you doing @Readytoevolve - have you decided on next steps?

Pretty natural to be straight speaking on the spectrum. Your point was very poignant as a lot of people assume that most people on the spectrum are thick and it couldn't be further from the truth.

I can’t begin to update all of the happenings of the past few weeks. However, what I now know is that this man is 100% a predator in plain sight.
Not only that, his wife has emerged as being completely complicit. Both are in caring roles of vulnerable children and adults. It sends chills down my spine.

My DH did confront him after more incidents over 2 days and told him to not speak to us or touch DD ever again. Groomer (can I call him Jimmy Saville?) apologised for his behaviour in the most nonchalant manner before DH could even finish the sentence about his behaviour. It was the most bizarre response someone could have to being accused of inappropriate behaviour with a small child. It was as casual as though they were chatting about the weather. DH did manage to recalibrate and hit his points home. I was there.

Following on, he continued to wave at us as we drove by and 3 days later spoke to DD again by saying hi as we walked past (unavoidable or we can’t leave our estate).
He confronted him again “did I not just tell you not to talk to her”. He said he was just being polite….
He went on to say he doesn’t understand it and that my DH wasn’t clear about what to do (he was). He was really testing boundaries.

DH and the groomer agreed that he would come after the children go to bed to talk about it away from the children. He did…. Groomer didn’t come out of his house to join the conversation for the entire 15 minutes when my DH went over there and stood at the front door. His child was “sick” (fine 2 hours before playing outside). Wife is a trained teacher and defended him. Told him our boundaries weren’t normal and he’s not doing anything wrong. She was very taken aback when DH explained that as a teacher she understands what safeguarding means. She didn’t see it as a safeguarding issue.
it was reiterated that he should not touch DD, speak to any of us, that his attempts of a friendship with her are inappropriate and making us uncomfortable. Those points were repeated multiple times. At no point did his wife in any way acknowledge that it could be in any way harmful.

There are a few other items that have happened that are quite outing which I’ll reserve from here as the situation is ongoing.

As the events are processing for me, even though he has been told to back off, it’s weighing very heavily on me. We are in a horrendous situation.
He seems to be doubling down and not backing off or staying away from other children. When it was all coming to ahead he set up a new toy on his front tiny lawn last week and he sits and chats to kids older while encouraging them
to use it. As they’re older kids, they’re not supervised

Naturally we have kicked off the appropriate procedures, however it’s not likely anything will be down without concrete evidence. It’s truly no wonder so many kids slip through the net in social services. I was very disheartened to realise how little they can/will do.

You mentioned other things that have happened

Are the authorities aware of those things?

I'm sorry, you're in such a dreadful situation.

You've done all the right things. You've called him out on it (and his wife) and let them know he's crossed boundaries. You've taken steps to protect your DD, and you've notified bodies to enable protection of wider public. Other neighbours will be noticing too.

It must be really difficult but can you try to park it now and trust the process? You can't do any more and you know your DD isn't being groomed now as you've stopped the contact.

I think you've done brilliantly as lots of people wouldn't have wanted the confrontation and would have ignored/avoided. But this could be some time before it's resolved - try not to let it ruin the next ? months of your lives?

Well done for following your instincts OP.

NO. Don't say sorry. Why would OP do that? She is not sorry and has nothing to be sorry about. "Don't touch her" is all that is necessary, then walk away before he reacts. No explanations, or excuses, and no apology. Women don't have to be "nice" and "polite" in this situation. This manipulator depends on compliance to get away with his boundary-crossing behaviour. OP can be a tigress on behalf of her DC, nothing to apologise for.
I'd be keeping an eye open for the wife. It sounds as though he could be quite a problem to her too.