Have you ever known someone who committed a serious crime?

[TheGhostsOfMeAndYou]

I’ve been listening to a true crime podcast recently and it got me thinking. One of the episodes was about Fred and Rose West. When Fred was first arrested (at the stage where police had only uncovered three bodies in the garden), his brother and sister-in-law spoke about him and said they couldn’t believe he’d done what he was accused of, as he had always seemed so gentle and polite spoken.

It made me wonder — has anyone here ever known someone who’s committed a serious crime, and did it come as a total shock? Or were there warning signs in hindsight? Did you ever suspect anything at the time? And how did others around them react — was it disbelief, or did some say they weren’t surprised?

I have a criminal record. " The very best of Val Doonican"

I saw an old friend all over the national papers for a serious financial crime. I couldn't believe my eyes!

I wonder what the number of people here who have known murderers says about Mumsnet users?!?!

My boyfriend when I was 16 murdered his house mate. We had been going out a few months and I went on holiday with my family (we were staying on a campsite in France and there was no chance of anyone getting hold of us back then). Came back to find a voicemail on the home phone from the police - carried out interviews etc, quite traumatic when you are that young and the man he killed was very well known and well liked around where I live, still makes me really sad. He got out of prison I think after about 10 years. I'd like to think I was a good judge of character and he seemed like a really nice guy, never anything but kind to me, it was a total shock that he had it in him to do something like that.

There was a thread about this recently, I posted that decades ago I had worked for two years for a woman who was later convicted of murder, and that yes, she was a horrible person. Many posters said you can't know - they hide it. Truth is there are some you can't tell what they are capable of, and others you can. In my case, I was young (22) and it was my first job and I was living abroad for the first time, so naive about the ways of the country and the world of work, desperate to keep the job so I could stay in the country, so I stuck with it in spite of seeing what she did to some of my colleagues and being frankly terrified of her. And then she fired me (yay!), which was a very lucky escape.

Clever thread for a detective to make / peruse.

Never gonna catch me m

My other half used to work on a project with young offenders. Two of her teenage clients murdered a young woman who was an acquaintance of theirs, dumped her body in a Biffa bin and tried to set her on fire.

Made the BBC news 😱

I know someone who has been in prison for stalking. He seems entirely normal.

I also met that guy who locked a nurse in his boot for 9 days. You would never suspect there was anything wrong with him at all. Absolute charmer and very handsome.

Worrying really, you always imagine that such people would look like Golum.

Two girls from my form group at secondary school tortured and murdered a vulnerable older woman when they were 14/15. Horrific.

A neighbour of ours was convicted of the rape and sexual assault of several boys who were pupils of the school where he taught. My mother always felt there was something odd about him: he claimed some years earlier that he had never broken the law, received a parking ticket, nor exceeded the speed limit. He gave her the creeps anyway. I never noticed a thing, but I was young and self-absorbed, and didn't pay him any attention.
When he was caught it made the national papers. His wife denied that he had done anything really wrong, although she never visited him in prison, and she divorced him pretty sharpish, so she may have been motivated by shame. This was the 1980s, and we didn't have the same knowledge or understanding of these sort of nasty crimes that we do now.

I worked with a woman who went to prison for holding up a bank not once but twice. She was quite thick and an absolute bitch in work. There had been a rumour in work she was nicking money out of birthday and leaving cards when they were sent round but I think most of us assumed it was just people being unpleasant about her because she really was horrible. Turns out she was a thief on a very grand scale - she was married to a notorious local hard man and she tried to blame it all on him when she was sentenced. First we all knew about it was a Facebook post from the local police with a very clear picture on her taken from the banks security cameras saying “do you know this woman”. I think all 300 of us in the office must have grassed her up! The gossip was wild for months after that.

Yes, unfortunately. A former pupil.

He was very mild-mannered, but I knew that he was dangerous and had reported my concerns. I was laughed at.

He had written a story in which the main character carried out the crime that he eventually committed.

Recently a bloke who I’ve been working closely with for the last few years left because everyone in the workplace found out his criminal past. Involving teenage girls. HR had their hands tied because technically he ‘did his time’ so he had to leave of his own accord. Dirty fucker.

Maybe that we work in professions where we come in contact with a broad spectrum of people?

I can't say too much, but I'm certain that one of my former pupils got off with murder. Ditto, the parent of a former pupil.

Yes a few. Mainly kids from school who committed serious crimes later. One was convicted of murder when he was 19. Another one, a boy in our class who used to grope girls and it was never taken seriously. My friend was suspended for stabbing him with a pencil - he crawled under the benches in the science lab and shoved his hand between her legs, she reacted without thinking and was punished. He used to flash himself, actually sat playing with himself in the class room. He would call you and when you looked around, his penis was out or grab your hand and put it on it. He was kicked out of school finally when we were about 14 because he 'pretended to rape' a first year (now called year 7) by pinning her down in the playground and simulating sex with her. He was later convicted of rape aged 18, he served 5 years, and the year after his release raped a pensioner in a cemetery. We always said something was seriously off about him but nobody listened.

Old neighbour was convicted for sexual abuse of a child. I knew him when he was a child and he had a very normal childhood, his brother and parents were devastated and had no clue he was capable of this.

I used to teach and know of several ex pupils in prison, none of them are a surprise, not nice as teenagers and pretty clear what direction they were heading in.

Says more about how murder is poss more common than we thought or how it doesn't get reported

I used to work with a man who is currently in prison for attempting to murder his wife. I didn't know him well, but in our interactions he was mild as milk, very polite. I think we (workmates) were all quite shocked at what happened.

A girl in my year at school worked in a bank and got done for stealing £1million in cash. She totally got away with it as she claimed her crack head boyfriend forced her to do it. It happened over about ten years.

I genuinely don’t think I know anyone with a criminal record

A lovely, clever, and beautiful woman I know, was first married to a paedophile. Her second husband turned out to be a bigamist. Her third long term relationship was with a man who had narrowly escaped a conviction for murder. She tells me she is quite happy to remain single for the rest of her life...

Yep, serious fraud, murder and paedophilia (the latter two were colleagues before you question the company I keep and the former was the partner of an old school friend).

Fraud - yes, extravagant life which couldn’t really be explained
Murder - absolutely no warning. There was a back story as to why they did what they did
Paeodo - weird guy, cold, principled and standoffish, but nothing that made me think the absolute worst

Whatever this board is, they aren't safeguarding properly and should be disbanded.

I never worked directly with Ian Paterson, the consultant surgeon who was jailed for performing multiple botched and unnecessary breast operations, but we had mutual patients and met a couple of times at local educational events. At the time it didn't occur to me that he might be a rogue practitioner, but I now wonder whether I missed aberrations in my patients' treatment.

I've met quite a lot of proper bad'uns over the years. Some were obvious, others I would never have suspected.

Yes. It was the brother of a schoolfriend. He killed someone in his teens and is in his 50s now and still in prison.

He was into weed and hanging out with shady people, but the murder came as a shock.