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?

OK gibbous, you weren't there, so I cannot explain the otherness of this man.

I did, however describe the ordinaryness of the working men, didn't I?

Do you think that a telephoto lens pointed at the genitals of tiny children, the intent stare and 'click, click click' should not arouse any 'gut feel'?

Maybe the action of the police soon after. At what stage do you think 'gut feel'
should kick in?

What gut feel is, is very small anomalies being put together subconsciously. Women report something 'off' about their husbands way before the affair is discovered. I think OP has behaved entirely reasonably. Same man, trying to engage children, on THREE separate occassions. That is wierd.

There were no children around on the third occasion. He was standing by himself at the bus stop according to the OP. She has no idea if there were any children there 30 seconds before or if he just missed the bus as it drove off.

That is how easy it is to twist someone's story and make things look worse

and you pieced it together not when you saw these men with high-tech equipment parking on the roads and, in your own words, pointing their phtography at the genitals of tiny children, with an intent stare and click, click clicking away. but when you talked to them and he seemed uneasy.
So much for gut instinct as you thought they were just nostalgically recapturing their childhood.... but then you saw the beards.

Do you think that a telephoto lens pointed at the genitals of tiny children, the intent stare and 'click, click click' should not arouse any 'gut feel'?

Maybe the action of the police soon after. At what stage do you think 'gut feel'
should kick in?

If that was the case then that is nothing to do with gut instinct, but direct, indisputable evidence. Something woefully lacking in the OP.

Yes I agree re anomalies but there were none. He wasn't engaging with any children on two of them and appeared to know the children in the first. Heaven forbid you talk to children you know.

I think, once again, the responses on this thread demonstrate how quick Chinese whispers are to circulate and how as a result how easy it is to take two and two and make five - suddenly the man tried to engage with three different sets of children on three occasions.

1. Pagwatch, if you are still here, you are ace.

2. pumpkinsweetie, the op has never seen the chap alone with other people's children.

3. statistics are not actually relevant to this really. Surely the thread is about whether anyone else felt that they would have made the same choice as the op. if it was about 'how statistically likely that this chap could possibly be a sex offender' well we could just go around pointing at people at random. The question was 'does this seem like worrying/dangerous behaviour to you.' and TBH I absolutely and completely cannot see why the op had her spidey sense a-tinglin' over this...

4. ANY op that comes back to a (fairly contentious) thread that they have started and gets arsy about people still 'mithering' on about the points they fucking raised is not going to massively win people over.

Also. I have seen many people on this thread have been abused, and the fear of the idea that someone could be stopped seems to in some cases fuel an agreement that the op did the right thing. I was also abused as a kid, have been accosted but legged it as a teenager, have been raped. My mum was raped as a child. My sister has been raped (none of these events are connected btw.)

I sure as fuck am not sticking up for 'beasts'!!!! I just think the op hasn't provided any reasons that can make it at ALL clear why she had any negative gut instinct about this man.

Oh I am going to EXPLODE if I keep reading this thread.

"Most pedophiles succeed because they absoloutely fit in.
We watch the misfits and the oddities. They are usually not the problem."

Some misfits and oddities are abusers. They have families, too. It's often where they start. They go on to become serial abusers, because it's the oddball misfits who are likely to abuse children without the necessary grooming of the manipulative charmer. Because they're opportunists, they don't need to go in for the time-consuming grooming, their tally of victims is usually higher and they often go on to snatch, even murder, children.

Think Ronald Jebson, Leslie Bailey, Sidney Cooke, Roy Whiting, Robert Black. All oddballs, all guilty of serial abuse, all largely unknown to their victims. They're notorious because they went on to murder. Not all serial paedophiles go that far.

Tanith, that doesn't mean this guy was one of them. By all accounts he wasn't behaving oddly.

Gibbous, old chap. Would you mind most awfully punching me in the face? I think it would help matters a great deal.

:o only if you return the favour. But I assume you would only do that if you have a beard.

This thread has eaten itself...

Tanith

I said most. If you are going to quote me to dispute my post it would be better if you were disagreeing with what I actually said rather than quoting me and saying the same thing - most abuse is by those happily embedded within society.

But talk me through your last line because it looks remarkably like you are saying that I shouldn't worry about being abused for a decade by a charming and manipulative abuser because it could have been worse.

Actually don't. I have stayed up to check if there is any positive news on expats threads but seeing my own post quoted in such a cheap shot way has now sent me off. Well done.

My dad has a beard. And he doesn't talk much. I should probably burn him too.

Pagwatch. I hope you saw that I think you're ace. Your responses on this thread have been inspiring. Thanks.

Is he unkempt though? And does he talk to kids he knows in their parents' presence?

Sorry I'm being flippant, it's been a long 24 hours.

Pag, all your posts were ace and brave, I'm really sorry they've been so difficult and hope you're ok.

Crossed posts!

Pagwatch I agree with every word you said and your words are invaluable. Thank you.

I've said it earlier on the thread but just want to echo again how honest and accurate pagwatch's posts have been. It's very inspiring to see someone who has lived through some awful experiences being able to maintain the ability to be rational and calm. It's so much easier to jump on the hysteria bandwagon. It takes a lot more guts not to.

If you took a surreptitious photo of this man, and showed him to the local police, I am very very sure that they would know him. IYKWIM.

Fucking hell.

Shelly glad it wasn't just me...

All the streets used to fill up with working vans (BT, elec. etc) of men, watching them... I saw the frankly wierd, with their zoom lenses, taking pictures of the children. And they looked wierdos, beards, unkempt etc...

I was looking at paedophiles, and I didn't even know it.

So in your very own words, all the streets were full of work vans containing paedophiles including ones taking photos of childrens genitals with zoom lenses and then the police arrived?

And this wasn't on the national news?

I'm calling bollocks on this and I don't give a flying fuck whether that's against MNHQ's unfathomable rules which don't seem to include anthing against disablism but probably do include something about not calling bollocks on blatant sensationalism.

Uttter fucking bullshit.

Sheesh, this is exhausting. Pag, you come across as strong, brave, clear headed and insightful. Your words are indeed inspirational. Sleep well.