AIBU to not want to make snap decisions in peado panic ?

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My son attends a church based youth club (in Italy). Outside of the summer it is five afternoons per week, during the summer it is morning to evening M-F and S-S afternoons. He loves it. I love it because I don't think i would be able to provide the sort of social opportunities he wants if we took it out of our home education equation. Which is another way of saying that just not going any more would be far from a preferred option if at all avoidable.

Unbeknown to me there were a couple of incidents involving one of the youth workers and 10\11 yo boys and girls. I literally just found this out late yesterday evening and the details I have are sketchy, but it sounds like on three occasions this youth worker attempted to molest a child (2F, 1M), in all cases it appears that thankfully somebody noticed him pulling the kids off into a toilet cubicle and were able to intervene and get the kids out before he managed to achieve his goal.

The priests banned him from the youth club, and the swimming pool that the youth club goes to (where one of the incidents took place) has also banned him. The parents of the kids involved went to see the youth club worker's parents, but did not take the matter to the authorities.

The problem seems to be that this person is hanging around just outside of the boundaries of both the youth club and swimming pool as well as making the occasional entry onto both grounds and having to be removed. so far without incident for any of the kids.

I don't want to make snap decisions in peado panic, I am aware that so far this is hearsay (although I don't think of the lady who told me as a hysterical gossip), but at the same time I don't want to underestimate the level of risk and fail to protect my son in the face of a real and inappropriately dealt with threat.

He is there today and all the kids will be going to the swimming pool this afternoon. All I have done so far is be very insistent about him going to the toilet when his friends are going, to stick in his group and gone over the usual stranger danger stuff, but not in any hyper super urgent "imminent threat" way because I really don't want to scare the crap out him and give him an overinflated sense of danger. Our hastily formed main plan is for DH to go swimming too this afternoon (which he often does so it wouldn't be a huge shocker for our son to see him there) just to keep an extra eye on things in a surreptitious manner.

But I'm churning here, worrying that I haven't done enough and feeling very uneasy, which is not usually the case when he is off there having a great time. Part of me didn't want to let him go today till I had more information and a more solid idea of a plan to help him protect himself in the outside event of something horrible happening. But the other part of me doesn't want to ruin the youth club for him and act out of panic in a void of information, potentially without grounds. Because as much as I trust the lady who told me, people make mistakes and wrong information through the grapevine is not unheard of.

Just to avoid leaving out anything pertinent, I'm an atheist, so I may be bringing some of my negative feelings about the way the church has handled child abuse to the table here. I really like both the priests running the club, neither of them give me an "off" vibe (unlike some others), but initially it was very hard for me to place my son in that environment because there was this lack of trust thing going on. Not sure if it is having a resurgence on the back of the information, or if it is exclusively the information that has upset the apple cart.

What would be a reasonable approach to this dealing with this info\situation to avoid either an over reaction, or an under reaction ?

OP if the police don't investigate a crime properly then doing all you can do will include complaining about the police handling of your report.
People who say 'there's no point in reporting it - the priests won't co-operate and the police won't investigate' as as much responsible for covering up abuse as the authorities themselves imo.
And I will change my advice about you pulling your child out. You say that if the incidents have happened as described you will have to TELL THEM to report it? Get your child the hell out of there now!

You say that if the incidents have happened as described you will have to TELL THEM to report it?

I can and will bring what I know (if the story gets verified) to the attention of the police in an official manner. As in they fill in a form rather than just listen and write nothing down. To provide a paper trail if something pops up in the future so people can't act like it is out of the blue and sweeping under the carpet gets retropectivly revealed. Theoretically it could initiate an investigation as soon as I sign my statement, but realistically it won't.

At the moment there are several possible scenarios that could turn out to be the reality IF it turns out that the abuse took place...

-EITHER nothing was mentioned to the police officially by either the youth club or the swimming pool people
-OR the police officially noted down, but failed to act upon, what was said to them by the priests\swimming pool people.
-OR the youth club and the police did their jobs and the parents shut the whole thing down with denials\refusals to press charges because they felt that an investigation\process would be harm on harm for their child.

I am not going to run and drag my son out of the swimming pool with so many ifs about the whole thing. His father is down there keeping an eye on our son with me having practically left imprints of the guys photo on his retinas.

And if the story is true the swimming pool has a ban on the (alleged) bad guy coming in. So that means considerably more eyes than just my husband's on the look out for him.

I think that is probably the best short term compromise between taking a risk with his safety\well being and going into "avoiding all risk mode" that we have available to us today.

I can make some breathing space tomorrow because there is a day trip to the mountains that I know he doesn't want to go on, so he'll happily sit that one out without me having to explain why. That gives me a full 24 hours without "imminent dread" screwing my thought process up so I can do some investigating outside of the youth club setting, and big priest never goes on the trips, so I can get his undivided attention with no eyes and ears on us once the coaches have left. Which feels like the best plan of action that I have come up with so far. Once I have a more solid feel of what went on it will be easier to work out what to do next.

Another poster said speak to the parents of the children who the guy tried to hurt. I don't have any names for the victims, I did ask but they didn't know. Which, thinking about it, does strike me as a bit odd because everybody knows everybody here and practicing discretion for the sake of victims' privacy is not something I have seen a lot of since moving out into the sticks.

But that might be me clutching at straws.

I've been racking my brains as to who to speak to cos I don't want to start randomly calling and getting dragged into the land of the gossips and I have thought of a mum that I totally trust, who knows the youth club inside out because she works for the mayor, who runs the council which is involved in the creation\running\funding of the youth club.

She is not at all laissez-faire when it come to her three kids, who go to the youth club as much as my boy does, so I don't have to worry about her toning things down because of a differing perspective when it comes to risk versus being a bit cotton wooly. She is the sanest woman I know so I reckon the most accurate version of the truth is probably going to come from her. I'll call her in the am cos she'll have left work by now.

They don't have like a wholesale immunity, don Giuseppe Abbiati from my own regione went down for sexually abusing children not so long ago. Even more recently don Riccardo Seppia was arrested in Liguria for child abuse and dealing drugs

But I think clergy have immunity if it is discovered that they didn't pass on info to the police about another priest abusing children and chose instead to take the issue to ecclesiastical channels. so if a family takes their protest first to the Vescavo before they go to the police there is a possibility they will be pressured to let the church deal with it, and when the church doesn't deal with and the family turn to the police the Vescavo is untouchable legally.

I really don't anticipate any significant movement in the church on this matter (or any other) while this Pope is still in charge.

If police action is required and if they deal with your report incompetently (as you seem to strongly suspect they will) then why wait for the polices incompetence to be retrospectively revealed? Many more children could have been abused by then. There must be some kind of complaints procedure in place for if you are not happy with the service provided by the police. Or is everyone in Italy willing to accept that the police won't investigate child abuse within the church and that the church won't report it? Someone has to challenge this damaging culture of covering up abuse surely?

Also from a child protection perspective the last people you want to alert to allegations of this kind are the perpetrator and anyone who has assisted them in hiding the abuse. It just gives them more time to better try and hide the crime.
I'm all for not wrapping kids in cotton wool in case paedos 'get them' but I'm absolutely flabbergasted by the laid back attitude some of you are taking to this! If you found out your child had been abused in school would you make an appointment to see the teacher about it? It's not a missing jumper we're talking about here but a man who has potentially already attacked 3 kids!
I hope to God that this is all just a childish joke started by one of the kids and the man is innocent because it sure as hell doesn't seem like anyone who is supposed to be looking after these kids - Priests, the police or parents are going to ensure this man is brought to justice if any crime has been committed.

There must be some kind of complaints procedure in place for if you are not happy with the service provided by the police.

Yes there is. But getting your complaint to move from province to regional level alone takes years. Literally years. Only to see it put aside as a minor matter because I was not even a witness to an event, but merely repeating what I had been told.

*If you found out your child had been abused in school would you make an appointment to see the teacher about it?

See the above. Make it a million times longer, harder and more frustrating and that is the reality of pushing a complaint (uphill) through the various levels of state school bureaucracy. Which is ultimately pointless cos you have a better chance of turning lead into gold than getting a school employee fired. I've been through that complaint system more time that I can shake a stick at. My greatest inpact was when I was officially complaining about a colleague screaming things like "I will ram a pencil down your throat, sideways" at six year olds. She had even been stupid enough to start writing swear word laden notes in the kids homework diaries so the usual "your word against hers" strategy was unavailable. End result, the director took the most stringent action he could against her. And shuffled her to another school. To be the primary teacher of the class my son was enrolled in.

The only time I have seen something decisive happening in my area was when a nursery school class emptied to zero because parents were at the end of their tether after complaining about their children being slapped only for no action to be taken. All the kids being withdrawn woke up the next level of authority out of their stupor and somehow it came to light that the teacher had had her own child removed from her care due to mistreatment BEFORE she was given the job and the courts went on to find her not mentally competent to be held legally responsible for her actions. I think that lack of competence judgment might have been the way the school managed to wriggle out of their contract with her.

I hope the story isn't true too, and cracks in it are possibly starting to appear now I've calmed down a bit, what with my child being back under my nose safe and sound.

Because the reference to the swimming pool didn't register with me at first, but it points to the alleged abuse having happened almost one year ago. Today was the first time the kids went with the youth club to the pool this academic year. The last time they went was the first week in July last year.

I can understand me lagging behind the rest of the town in terms of knowing what is going on, but in a whole year not single a whisper of gossip about this story, from any quarter, has reached at least my husband's ears if not my own ?

In the year since the swimming pool incident must have taken place the number of kids attending the afternoon sessions and the summer camp itself has gone through the roof, so drastic is that increase that the other two rival summer camps (one at the church nearest to me, the other at the elementary school) appear to have shut up shop and decided not to run this year.

I can see parents finding it futile to try and take legal action or contact the authorities. I can even see some refusing to believe anything untoward could take place within spitting distance of the church bells. But if this story were true I would have expected to see what we saw in the nursery school, people voting with their feet to the alternative options, since it is the only way they can exercise their limited power to make their feelings known and avoid putting their kids in the way of a known harm.

Instead I'm seeing the opposite, people have come in greater numbers to the place where supposedly something unspeakable happened, to the point where they have put all the alternative options out of business.

It doesn't blow the story out of the water, but it doesn't exactly add up either. Something must have happened, this can't have appeared out of thin air. But I may have heard the "one whole years worth of embellishments" version of events.

And now I have at least Friday and probably Saturday\Sunday too as extra days to investigate, without the stress of trying to do it while he is at the club.

Cos he has just come downstairs with a bright red throat and no voice.

It's an odd feeling, being rather relieved that your child is sick.

And the true story is.......

I just phoned the mum I know who works for the mayor.

Basically last year a 15 year old boy who was attending the summer camp as a kid, not a youth club helper, approached a 13 year old girl that he was convinced he was totally in love with outside the loos of the swimming pool and asked her for a kiss. She said no and then he tried to kiss her despite her saying no. Naturally enough she freaked out, feeling utterly out of her depth I should imagine, and yelled for back up.

The upshot was that the 2 priests were believed to be going OTT by some, because they refused to budge on banning the lad from the club on the basis that the girl's right to take part in the club without feeling intimidated or stressed had to take priority. They also felt the bigger picture meant it would be reckless to risk a repetition of events, or be seen to be condoning the boy's behavior thus giving the other boys a green light to being "pro active" with their love struck feelings or worse, since that half the kids in the club are girls and they have a right to be protected from undesirable advances in the club. On top of that the priests felt that the church youth club is no place for any kissing full stop, even of the reciprocal kind. (Although I think they are on to a hiding to nothing there, my next door neighbours are just one of many of the married couples I know whose love first bloomed as 14 year olds getting off with each other at oratorio, seems to be the place where 4\5ths of the community first experienced cupid)

The girl, that the boy tried to kiss, is the best friend of the daughter of the mum I just called. A year has past, the girl is fine, still going to the youth club\swimming pool and no new details have emerged that would point to something more serious than an emotionally immature boy trying to force a kiss on her.

There have been no other incidents that have come to light concerning this lad and no reports of him hanging around outside the club either. The vigile who is responsible for liaising with the club drops in 2\3 times per session for the last six months because there were issues with theft and bad behavior and a few kids got banned, but took to hanging around outside causing trouble. So if the lad had been hanging around it is highly likely that the vigile would have noticed him lurking even if nobody else had. Because spotting banned lurkers is the whole point of his patrols.

It would appear that rather than being wishy washy the two priests are perceived as too "fiscale" (taking things too seriously, over keen on enforcing rules rather than seeing regulations as nicely bendable things) by some, and they got some stick for banning the lad trying to force kisses on a girl, as well as excluding the kids who were thieving and bullying. But according to L this is precisely the attitude that caused them to be placed here when the last priest was quietly whisked away (financial shenanigans) because the church felt the community needed SAS type priests to put the shop back into order after years of decline.

L is taking me for coffee on the council's tab next week to catch me up on all the local happening so I don't get caught out with a curve ball that sends me into a wibble again thanks to lagging behind the grapevine. I have a horrible feeling there is an ulterior motive and I am about to be talked into volunteering for something. But I guess I owe her that much after giving me an hour of her time first thing in the morning.

Thank you to everybody who responded, including those who challenged me, I'm not sure I would have come up with the idea of calling L in the Mayor's office if I hadn't had to defend my choices and the details behind them. As soon as my boy is better he can go back to the youth club without the embarrassment of his father being forced to lurk in the grounds, hastily disguised as hedge "just in case". (=

Well I'm glad that the Priests seem to be uncharacteristically intolerant of harassment of the kids and can only hope if it was an adult they would have escalated things further.
Not sure I would want to live anywhere where it's expected that Priests and teachers are above the law and the police don't investigate crimes but that's a different matter and, thankfully, didn't need to be put to the test on this occasion.

So pleased for you and your son (and the fact that dh might not have to lurk in the bushes)

Enjoy the rest of your summer. (and hurrah for priests being fiscale!)

AN excellent result - and a good example of how it's always worth finding out what's at the bottom of rumours rather than spreading them and starting a panic.

Absolutely springchicken that's why I said I would have dropped the child off and had a word with the staff to find out if there was any real threat - if there was you could take the child home and if not, as turned out to be the case, it would have saved the OP a days worth of worry and fretting. But hindsight is a wonderful thing.

Not sure I would want to live anywhere where it's expected that Priests and teachers are above the law and the police don't investigate crimes

I don't want to either. But Utopia is not on a map and there is no place on this earth that is without its uglier side.

On the whole "bigger picture" Italy suits me better than Thailand or Britain did.

Although I reserve the right to waggle suitcases about and threaten to move the whole family "home" on the occasions when TIT (this is Italy) slams into my cultural expectations with an almighty great thud.

Which wouldn't happen nearly so often if certain people managed to remember their wife was a "forrin" and stop expecting them to take everything in their stride, like it was anywhere near their idea of "normal".

So pleased for you and your son (and the fact that dh might not have to lurk in the bushes)

As is DH. He gets terrible sciatica and all the crouching would have done him in (=

Enjoy the rest of your summer. (and hurrah for priests being fiscale!)

I'll raise my glass to that, I am so pleased that my impression of the priests has been confirmed rather than shattered. Kind of given me hope too, that while there is much still to be improved the bleakness of the picture is not universal and\or change is starting to happen at grass roots level, if not up at the people in special hats level.

I am going to dedicate some of my summer to getting more up to date on the word on the street cos I don't want to get caught out like this again by random bombshells. I'm knackered after a night tossing and turning.

Have you read the Dark Heart of Italy?

I think you'd like it. It's not about restoring farmhouses and treading grapes with friendly, if toothless, locals.

Having only been to Italy on holiday I must say this thread has been an education. But I value being protected from crime higher than beautiful weather and delicious food (just!). Puts into perspective people who complain about the police in Britain. And OP you must find some of the 'should I complain to the school?' threads on here a good laugh!

that's why I said I would have dropped the child off and had a word with the staff

Thinking about it in hindsight, it would have been me having a word with staff, who if the original story were to be believed, had dropped the ball at best or were involved in some sort of cover up at worst. So difficult to perceive as impartial or without vested interest.

And me in a state.

Trying to have a difficult conversation in my L2, in public.

Been there, done that, got several T Shirts (=

Usually makes things ten times worse.

I need time to prepare, to work out what questions to ask, work through some of the emotion first so I am comprehensible when I speak and less likely to fly off the handle when I take issue with a response that I may have misunderstood in the heat of the moment.

Plus the place would have been milling with ear wigging parents. Since I wasn't aware of the time-line yesterday morning, chances are that I could have set off a new wave of gossip as people assumed I was talking about something that had just happened. Not least cos the story I was relating bore no resemblance to the events of last year, so it could have looked like something new and shocking to them and set off a gale of whispers.

And then when the dust settled my son would end up having to deal with the fall out of his friends relaying just how hysterical their parents think I am.

The whole debacle of me trying to sort things out in an immediate\off the cuff way with the school, and his subsequent withdrawal, is history I don't care to repeat. For him above all, but also for my husband and myself. I had the best possible intentions and rightness on my side, but I created far more upset and poorer outcomes for us all than if I had "taken a moment" before grabbing the bull by the horns.

As unpleasant as the last two nights and yesterday were, I am quite pleased that this time I have "resolved" the situation without having created more havoc in my wake.

Even if it probably was more by luck than judgment.

Prob would have been best to make an excuse to keep him off while you dug a little deeper then BUT it all turned out OK and that's the main thing. No idea what I would have done if it was actually me in the situation as it's always easier to be certain when your reading stuff on here that isn't about you.