To email the school re a man at the bus stop???

[JumpingThroughHoops]

Well I have emailed, so no AIBU about it really

Yesterday (Friday) 20 mins after primary school ended I saw a man at the bus stop outside the school. The bus stop usually has a large amount of teenaged girls waiting from the secondary opposite.

He was by himself indicating a bus had just been; there were no other adults or children around.

BUT. Earlier that morning the same man was at the primary sports day. He wasn't with a lady (for that read wife or partner), no reason why he should have been really, he might have been a single dad. BUT. He was chatting with another father, or rather he was listening as the other father waxed lyrical, pointing out his children and all their little friends, getting them to wave over.

Two months previous, I was on a train and he sat opposite me, with a French lady with two small girls (maybe 3 and 5). I assumed they were together, he knew their names. He carried their suitcase. I assumed the stilted conversation was because the lady didn't have English as a first language. I also assumed they were together because he was teasing one of the girls until she screamed in frustration. He was also asking lots of questions, but not in an obvious way, such as "when do you go home?" What are you doing tomorrow?" "is your Dad missing you?" - which of course I was oblivious to on the train because it was general chit chat.

See him at sports day and think it's that annoying wind up merchant again "oh, I didn't know there were little French girls at this school". There aren't any little French girls at the school and they were too young to be in the KS3 sports day anyway.

See him at the bus stop and think "hang on a min" gut instinct kicks in, something just isn't right here.

So I've emailed school with a full description, a set of circumstances and no accusations, because he wasn't actually doing anything suspiciously.

*disclaimer, I don't see a paedophile behind every tree, but I am a believer in gut instinct. I don't know why the red flags shot up when I saw him again. Probably because he was a bit of charmer, again not in an obvious way, he was just very good at ferreting out information from people.

Probably an entirely coincidental set of innocent circumstances and he is a listener rather than a talker.

Would you have emailed the school?

I love idly people watching, especially on holiday, seeing people walk by, and thinking, I wonder if they live /work here, etc, but I would never hang onto every word that a stranger said, it is so damn rude!
I sincerely hope I live nowhere near the OP ; I was on the bus and talking to my DS on the phone about my DN behaviour with the paint in her garage. My reaction was 'I would have murdered the little sod'
See you all on next month's Crimewatch.

Gibbous

I gave the figure of 53,000 because it is accurate, not because I was trying to argue any particular point about how common it is or not. I am perfectly aware of how it relates to the size of the population as a whole

Have you read the rape crisis page?

1 in 4 girls is sexually abused by the age of 16.

Here's another interesting tit bit from rape crisis.

Around 65% of women that contact rape crisis centres are adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse.

And that's relevant to the man at the bus stop how??

*Have you read the rape crisis page?

1 in 4 girls is sexually abused by the age of 16.*

1 in 4 who have contact with rape crisis yes?

This is exactly what i'm on about. Misrepresentation of figures does not strengthen the cause, it undermines and weakens it.

Tinkerbell, that's relevant to the discussion going on, on this very thread about statistics FFS

I don't see how it's relevant to what the OP thought she saw and couldn't resist acting on.

Sparks1, I read that 1 in 4 state about 2 years ago on crisis' page.

The next quote I posted is what they currently say.

Around 65% of women that contact rape crisis centres are adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse.

Yes, 65 of the women who have contacted rape crisis. A piss in the ocean

No one knows the true number. But should we only be concerned when we do? Are those figures not bad enough for you?

*Sparks1, I read that 1 in 4 state about 2 years ago on crisis' page.

The next quote I posted is what they currently say.

Around 65% of women that contact rape crisis centres are adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse.

Yes, 65 of the women who have contacted rape crisis. A piss in the ocean

No one knows the true number. But should we only be concerned when we do? Are those figures not bad enough for you?*

But the way you presented the figures was as 1 in 4 girls. i.e of the population.

Any abuse is too much. But as tinkerbell pointed out, these figures are utterly irrelevant as regards this thread.

All you're doing is trying to justify complete paranoia with unrelated statistics.

Damsel (I'll overlook your abusive FFS at me as you're obviously struggling to put together a coherent argument)

No one on here is condoning abuse. No one is saying the stats on sexual abuse 'aren't bad enough' (I find your mere suggestion of that quite abhorrent actually).

The point is: it's perfectly possible to be disgusted by sexual abuse WITHOUT believing that whenever any of us have a 'gut feeling' we should start reporting people left right and centre. Because potentially damaging people's reputations, self esteem and even livelihood on the basis of some unsubstantiated whim is ABUSIVE too.

I thought it was a discussion, not an argument?

Regarding the point: The OP doesn't even know who the man is, so I do not believe his reputation is at stack, until she identifies him. Which she hasn't done, though she has discribed him.

Who knows what the school will do, if anything, on receipt of the letter?

Stack - Stake.

Fireice that particular sub thread goes back to my response to Pumpkinsweetie's post where she misquotes the figure: "54,000 is a lot imo."

Although tbf, I assumed you brought it up to make some kind of point?

The OP doesn't even know who the man is, so I do not believe his reputation is at stack, until she identifies him. Which she hasn't done, though she has discribed him

If you seriously think there are no potential repercussions for a probably innocent man as a result of the OP's busybodying, you are incredibly naive.

Damsel you were putting forward an argument, let's not complicate things even further by picking semantic holes.

I can't handle argumentalists so I'm out of this thread, standing firmly on my views.

Yes, good time to go, and leave the rational discussion to people who are capable of it

WTF?

I've worked in A&E departments for most of my working life and there have been 3, possibly 4, situations where my gut instinct has told me to get the hell out of there (all of these involve being in a confined space with a patient). I've been right every time so I do give gut instinct some credence but, really? Your evidence is spurious, to say the very least, and the fact you're coming on here asking for validation tells me you know that too.

Pagwatch's statement way upthread says it all. Those we have to be wary of are not the oddballs, the misfits, the socially inept. They are the charming manipulators that insinuate themselves into people's lives.
If you honestly thought there was cause for concern then the police should have been your first port of call, not the school. How do they know who locally is on the sex offenders register?

I brought it up so that we would all know what the figure actually was, rather than to make any point about whether it was common or rare, which are subjective terms anyway.

How can you possibly know how "common" paedophiles are or aren't when you consider the fact that many people never report their abuse? If you or someone close to you has been a victim of sexual abuse saying that this is actually very rare is irrelevant to them.

I'm not actually disagreeing that this is the case, it just feels as if some people are almost scoffing at the very suggestion that this man could have had sinister reasons for being where he was.

Do you think that OP should have simply put all of her feelings to one side and ignored this? Genuine question.

I think some people are reading a different thread. No one is scoffing or making light of the fact that sexual abuse exists. They are simply pointing out that it is extremely damaging (in fact I would say tantamount to another form of abuse) to start reporting people to organisation simply on the basis of gut feeling.

What should the op have done? Explained to her children, on an appropriate level for their age, how to handle a situation where they feel uncomfortable. But that's an entirely separate issue, and has nothing to do with the man at the bus stop

I'm not saying you or anyone else is scoffing about sexual abuse more that it seems as if some people are saying that the chances of him being sinister are so remote as to be insignificant. Someone mentioned the Chris Morris programme which highlighted this hysteria some years ago. I agree that the chances are he is normal, I also agree that many people are abused by people that they know, as I was, but it is not unheard of for people/children to be abused/groomed by strangers either.

Of course, as parents we should talk to our children about what to do if they feel uncomfortable but I would still be conflicted as to whether I ought to do more if I was the OP.

It is as if all you are saying is "what if she is wrong?" which is of course a worrying, damaging scenario but I also think you have to consider "what if she's right?".