Feeling shocked after hearing disturbing news about someone from school

[FriendlyNPC]

I found out a few months ago that a boy I went to school with was caught with indecent images of children, it was in the paper and my sibling still lives locally so told me.

He's recently been sentenced, and it was so much worse than initially thought.
I don't really want to describe what, but basically since I read the update I feel sick. We weren't close or anything, but we were friendly, and I feel so disgusting to know.

Not really after anything other than just needing to get it out. I feel a bit pathetic for feeling so physically ill about it. It's not about me. I haven't even seen him in 20 years. But I feel filthy by association, you know. Shocked.

That's it. Thanks for reading.

The brother of a boy in ds class was convicted of rape age 17. What made it worse he raped a disabled woman at the bottom of the road from where my parents lived, bang across the road from where ds & I nearly went to live, it made me feel sick knowing had we moved there it could have been me. His parents & brother had to move out of the area after he was convicted, he only got 8 years so will now be out & about in the community again free to do it again. The judge said he was one of the most depraved offenders he had ever tried but due to him pleading guilty & his young age it was the maximum sentence he could give him, apparently he had been watching his victim for several weeks before he attacked her, it makes your blood run cold.

It’s a horrible situation. We had the same with a man from work, he was sentenced to 20 years for hideous crimes.

I wasn’t close to him, but had that feeling of how did we not know, lots of passing conversation over the years. Some of the people who were friends with him had counselling via work as it badly affected them. I think it’s a common reaction.

I think most women will have experienced being accosted by men from quite a young age- 11 or 12 was not at all unusual for the girls I knew. On the bus, on the train, fathers of friends, parents friends, fathers of the children they babysat for. I was young a long time ago, but I know that both my neices were recently subject to harassment from men in public places on their way to school( in different cities). It’s everywhere.

It’s very common unfortunately. The son of someone I know was done for images of CSA.

Many years ago when my DCs were quite young, we had builders working on a big renovation of our house that went on for about 9 months. Sometime after the work was complete, a detective turned up one day to tell us that one of the builders who’d been in our home almost every day for all that time was being charged for some extremely serious offences against a child, and they were tracing any children that this man had been in contact with. I’m relieved to say that after interviewing our children with a social worker present, the detective couldn’t find any evidence that they had been targeted by him (although he had mentioned one of our children in a message to a friend). I feel sick when I think about it. We had liked him; thought he was a bit of a rough diamond but essentially a nice bloke. I’m just so very glad our DCs were never alone with or near him, but heartbroken for the child who was not so lucky.

Thete was a paedophile ring at my child's primary school. The cover up was astonishing. It is everywhere. There aren't enough prison places for all the paedophiles, so they are everywhere.

To add: the builder also had indecent images of children on his devices so the police wanted to meet my children as part of identifying/ruling out the child victims in the photos he had.

This happened with someone I went to school with, it was a real shock.

Also the lollipop man at our son’s infant school was convicted.

It's horrible, they are everywhere.
When I was 18 I lived in a flat with a shared outdoor toilet with the adjoining flat.
Turned out the man who lived there with his elderly DM was a paedophile. He had abused his daughter.
The flat next door was occupied by an elderly man and his son, the son was a paedophile. He enticed young teens back to the flat.
I can never understand any women who stand by them.

This is sadly true. Whenever a child goes missing you hear that police have interviewed pedophiles in the area. It’s always in the hundreds. I’m always shocked, but honestly the statistics around how many men abuse children or would do so if they could get away with it are appalling.

This is from Australia but there was a similar survey done in the UK with similar findings

There are a certain percentage of people with this kind of ideation, and a certain percentage of those act upon those thoughts. A tiny percentage of those are ‘found out’. A tiny percentage of those are successfully prosecuted and punished… then, when they have completed their punishment the can use to ‘right to be forgotten’ to have all trace of their disgrace removed from the internet. They can then move, change their name and slither away…. They are all around us.

I believe a few professionals in the field of sexual psychology and research have estimated that the number of men who show some interest in minors to be something insane like 1 in 5.

That is a truly revolting number, and some of the stories. How someone could stay with someone who did this I don't know. This guy isn't even the first man I've known jailed for this either.

As for why I feel filthy by association - shock? Of course I know it's nothing to do with me.

But thanks. It helped to get it out.

Having worked in this area I can sadly say it is far more common than you think. My elderly neighbour for one was convicted of this many years ago. Age/ occupation/ being married/ having kids of their own is no barrier.

It is horrible, we had it with a cousin, he was imprisoned and is now released has devastated the entire family ripple effect is really tough especially for his siblings who live in the same area, my aunt dear aunt (his mum) never recovered from it all

Had a far worse than that experience, again hadn’t seen for 25 years but front page of the national newspapers bad! The thing is, this chap was a bit weird as a teen but so are many people, he as an adult had appeared to be completely normal married with a family… but ick really bad convicted

I agree, I think that it’s very likely that it’s already 1 in 8 men that access this sort of stuff and or commit sex crimes ranging from voyerism to assault. We just don’t hear about it as vpns allow privacy and most sexual assault goes unreported.

my next door neighbour was caught by one of those vigilante groups chatting online to teenage girls (decoys). It was horrific. I felt shocking. Then 18 months later the police broke my door down and my 18 year and 1 week old son was arrested for animated images (hentai). You can’t believe how deeply traumatic this stuff is for the wider family, my entire family was ripped apart, my adult children are still in counselling etc. The shame is crippling and Of COURSE it’s the mothers ( my) fault for doing such a shit job. No mention of the father that dumped him at 18 months old, or the ADHD/autism that left him completely socially isolated and’s often beaten up and vulnerable to the transgender adults that groomed him into thinking he was a trans furry too. No. It was all MY fault. luckily I’ve got a very good sister and friend who stood by me.

Yup, a former colleague went to prison for indecent image offences. He absolutely conformed to the stereotype too, right down to the dirty raincoat. I remember another colleague joking, ‘If anyone was going to get done for being a paedo it would 100% be Dave, wouldn’t it?’ And then it was very unfunny. Lots of us had young children and it was a very upsetting time. They walk amongst us. They hold down responsible jobs, and they have families and friends.

And some of them are probably sex abusers themselves hiding in plain sight…

An ex of mine is in prison for CSA and rape. I hadn't seen him in around 15 years when I heard the news but it was still a massive shock and made me feel so sick. Still does. I hate that he was a part of my life.

I know you are peripheral to his life, but this is the reality of these crimes-they are like a stone dropped in a lake, the ripples go on and on. Speaking as someone affected twice by two separate pricks like this in my family; you become secondary victims.(nothing of course on.the same level as the actual victims of csa) You worry about your children, grandchildren,your relationships, people talking and blaming you, your job(esp if you work with children or vulnerable adults). It taints your memories, your future plans, your health. It feels surreal and foreign, especially if you've never dealt with police or the justice system before. It is the height of arrogance and selfishness to commit these crimes. It ruins so many families.

Every single one of us will know multiple people like this unfortunately - it’s not remotely uncommon and while we all like to think we’d recognise someone “off” the reality is that the vast majority of us wouldn’t have a clue.

I was going to say that most men aren't attracted to toddlers, but now I think about it, I'm not so sure. I have heard men say creepy things even about little girls. I remember a party for girls around 8 or 9. The father of one guest was watching them play. He then said, half to me half to himself, "God, she's cute," about a little blond girl (no more than 8). The way he said it, and the way he looked at her, really disturbed me.

I also remember being in a pub garden one summer evening and watching my father in law gawping at a girl of 11 or 12 who was playing on a slide. It was so obvious that I had to look away in disgust.

I have a dark suspicion that, in the past, the sexual abuse of young/pre-teen girls in orphanages and factories was routine. I also suspect that the abuse of step daughters was very, very common. I have know at least four women who were sexually abused by their mother's boyfriends. None ever went to the police (so the statistics are totally misleading).

DH and I were reminiscing about a place I worked at around 25 years ago. Put a few names into FB to see who was on there and jog our memories, one we couldn’t find and DH decided to put him into google, expecting that maybe he’d still have a connection to the work place, instead found many articles about his convictions for having thousands of indecent images of children. The place of work had many families with young kids around and was the sort of place staff members kids would sometimes hang around in the holidays, it was a huge shock!

Also, the strange man who’s lived across the road from my parents for 40 years and has caused concern to local parents on many occasions but had never been caught doing anything illegal……until last year when he was arrested for flashing young children in a local country park.

Yes, I’ve seen that too. It doesn’t surprise me, and I also wouldn’t be surprised if the ratio wasn’t more like 1 in 3….the apparent popularity of porn categories such as step-siblings and incest, school girls, etc. 🤮

3 in recent years where I live. All 3 the nicest people you (think) you could meet.

Men..... nothing surprises me about any of the revelations I read about now. And what about those big groups of men who use a man's drugged wife/partner in turn for sex?

If you were to read a novel about it you would be sceptical. But no more. They walk among us.