To feel we should have the right to know where sex offenders live

[midwifeandmum]

Im watching Louis Theroux program and over in the USA they have an app to search for sex offenders in their area.

Why do the UK not follow their lead!! Very scary especially if you have children

I have a sex offender in my street and didnt find out he had been charged with sex offences for 2 years.

This man lives over 2 hedges from me and walks about the street thinking he owns it. Has a real bad attitude. grrr makes my blood boil

I have an ex-colleague on that database, Tatty.

without going into identifying details, I have no sympathy at all for the person in question - but the entry on him's just an article from the local paper, complete with grinning photo, showing teenage pupils in the background. They probably aren't immediately identifiable if you don't know them, but I do recognise several of them - it feels slightly 'off' to me that their images are on this website alongside pervy bloke. No idea why neither the original paper nor the website cropped the picture.

It's of no actual use to anyone - he's long since left the area & is quite rightly banned from teaching. I can't see the point of it, beyond random prurience. Unless he moved in next door to you & you decided to google him, in which case the original story bobs up immediately, anyway.

Haha well that's a flounce if I've ever seen one.

Nick - I assume that is aimed at me? I am not on my guard with him. But with men I have never met always, it would be irresponsible of me not to be.

Where's, sorry no it was in relation to the op saying she would check out a possible boyfriend before letting them meet her children.

I take the same precautions with my children regardless of who lives on our street and what family members they have contact with. We used the "PANTS" rule, we talk about how they can always come to me with anything that concerns them. This is simple common sense and - hopefully - protects them from potential danger far better than some idiotic list of local convicted sex offenders.

A good friend of mine recently found out his next door neighbour is a convicted paedophile.
The paedo has two children of his own & is still with his wife. My friend had let his children next door to play with the paedo's children, he had also let his kids play naked in their own back garden in paddling pool etc on full view of the paedo's upstairs windows etc. When he found out he ended up threatening the neighbour with a crow bar, it went to court, he was convicted & made to pay compensation etc to the paedo.
There was an uproar at the local school as the parents of classmates felt they should have been informed etc.
Obviously had he known, he would not have allowed his children to play next door nor have them running around naked where the neighbour may have been watching & enjoying it etc. They now feel sick at the thought of this man living next door & tbh it was so well publicised locally their house is unsaleable as no one else would want to live next to him either.

I totally understand that vigilante/mob mentality reactions are no good at all but I can see how sometimes forewarned is forearmed.

ah Nick - i see, missed her saying that! what a prat! like you wouldn't be on your guard with anyone new around your kids!!

OP are you aware that WOMEN can also abuse kids and can be on the SOR for any number of reasons too???

In fairness RedSpinger your neighbour sounds like a dickhead.

red were his children harmed by the neighbour? Were they harmed by him potentially seeing them naked? His response (to threaten with a crowbar) was totally out of order and I wouldn't want to live next to him.

Red, why does it make a difference that the neighbour was convicted? He could easily have been a sex offender who has never been caught. Therefore if he is concerned about his kids in the pool, he will need to put costumes on them.

And yes, your friend was rightly convicted.

I'm not sure I'd want my kids in the house of someone who threatens people with crowbars either.

So 2 potential threats were flagged up there RedSpringer

I dont agree with this at all and my own father is due to enter a plea on the 8th as he has sexually abused my own daughter, when he had his first appearance in court there was a photographer from a local paper outside the court who took his picture and printed an article about what he had done along with the street he lived in, the very day the newspaper was printed a gang broke into his house and beat him severely, had they killed him where would the justice have been for my daughter? and had someone not called the police to get him out of the house and he did get away and moved somewhere noone knew him what would there be in place to stop him doing the same thing to someone elses child

It is up to the authorities to regulate, but I don't trust them. I worked in local authority homelessness..years ago now. But sex offenders leaving jail had the right to be rehoused. I will never, ever forget how sick I felt dealing with them. They would sit there in the interview room and grin all the way through the interview, and find any way they could to lean forward to touch your hand, or arm. Of course they know you find them abhorrent so it was a big joke to them. Eventually we'd use rooms with wider desks so they had no more chance to try that. Gives me the creeps thinking about it even now. On leaving prison they were mostly put into hostels. There are children in those hostels. You will almost never know when one is moved into your area, onto your road. Im not quite sure what to think about USA law in respect of sex offenders, but UK law is a joke.

If there is someone who has contact with your child who you are concerned about then you can find out if they have previous convictions.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25489541

However, where do you expect 'paedos' to live OP? In a street where no children live? I don't know any of those. And if they find such a street, should they move out if a family moves in?

And FFS of course you can't go around threatening people with crowbars. If I were that paedophile, I don't think I'd want a violent, crowbar-wielding thug living next door to my children. Perhaps I could hound him out with a pitchfork?

This hits home to me. I have a family member on the SOR for a porn addiction that led him to look at teen girls online. He's getting help. The judge deemed him safe to be in society. He works and keeps a low profile and our town knows who he is and mostly he's left to live in peace now. At first there was a bit of a fuss naturally due to the nature of the crime. He's not a danger. He's doing his best to reform and contribute good stuff to the community by volunteering through the church. I distance myself a little just because I don't want my DC to know too much about it all, she's too young. But if someone beat the crap out of him for his crime I would say that's very wrong. Violent vigilante behavior just means humanity is sinking lower and lower. What's the point? Violent sex crimes against children usually result in the guilty person being put in prison where they can't hurt anyone. If someone is found to be mentally addicted, then gets appropriate help, and behaves themselves and gives good back to the community then surely that's a positive out of a negative? A lot of sex offenders know they did wrong and are paying for it in the way a judge sees fit. It's not up to anyone else to punish them or single them out. If they've been deemed safe to be in society who are we to take it on ourselves to give out unlawful justice.

Family members are more likely to abuse children than strangers. We need to educate our children in appropriate ways to know their rights and to know they're protected. There's peaceful ways to protect our children. There's no need for vigilante behavior.

It's a terrible idea. Vigilante charter and innocent people would get caught in the cross fire. They could be hurt or even killed.

It would offer no real protection against paedophiles either. The danger would come from those who've never been caught.

You also realise that the sex offenders register could include someone who had consensual sex with their 15 year old girlfriend just as they themselves turn 16. Obviously illegal but not really someone I'd necessarily consider a paedophile and danger to others.

are you drunk OP? I hope for your sake you're not actually a midwife, I can't see the NMC looking too kindly on you

I agree with gordylovessheep.

A man who lives very close to me is a convicted paedophile.
I'm not particularly concerned that he would abuse my daughter because I know who he is. I can take steps to avoid him.
I am far more concerned about the paedophiles who have never been convicted. The family members who I have no reason to believe are dangerous but who knows?
Until someone is caught out, who knows how safe they are to be around children.
I am not trying to whip up a frenzy on here or IRL but if we only ever concentrate on paedophiles and sex offenders who are already on the radar of the authorities, we are quite possibly turning our attention away from someone who may or may not be a lot closer to home, who could be very dangerous but as yet not caught.

I think a far more sensible approach would be to be aware that anyone could be a sex offender or paedophile and not to blindly trust anyone with our children until we are as sure as we can be that they are safe, and if we can't be sure, not to allow them to have unsupervised access to our children alone if at all possible.

Having said that, I also don't want to bring DD up to believe that every other adult is a paedophile, so by all means take precautions, but don't let hysteria cloud your child's childhood.

I am in the US so I am able to find out where the sex offenders in my town live.

It doesn't affect how we live our lives.

They also don't seem to be struggling with vigilantes and pitchforks.

It's a terrible idea. You only have to read the hysterical rants of the OP to see exactly why.

Oh, and I'm another who has grave concerns about your professional conduct and fitness for your role, on the basis of your apparent lack of concern for patient confidentiality.

Dont you remeber the justice meet out to "peodos" when a major newspaper started to release names / pictures and addresses of peodos and large mobs went out and trashed beat up abd threated (was someone killed i cant rember it was a good few years ago) and alot of totally innocent men were targeted becaue they happened to live at the posted address and that iccendet alone should tell you why it would be a stupid idea for a website / app that would give out that information.

How many innocent people would have to be effected for it to matter to some of these mob mentaily people.

Btw women can be put on the sex offenders register too but few people actully understand that women can be pedos aswell and so some horrid reason females abusing underage boys is not seen as bad as the other way around as i know 2 women that had abused (raped they are too young to consent) with one of them abusing a 8 year old and she did not get jail because the judge thought the 8 year old wasnt that badly effected , but the same judge sent down a 17 year old boy for 47 years having consenting sex with his girlfriend that was 2 days off being 16

I live in the US. I just checked our register and there are none in my area. That was the end of the search.

If there WAS someone in my area I have to admit I'd want to talk to the town clerk to ensure she knew about it (a friend of mine) and find out what sort of processes were in place (does the town need to know? Does the school need to know etc). If I had kids I would ensure my husband knew what s/he looked like as well. If we had kids old enough, I'd reinforce the "don't go anywhere with someone you don't know without asking me, and don't go with someone you DO know unless you hear this safe word or ask me".

You can get on the list though for what I consider "minor" things. There's one in a nearby town who's on the register for flashing an adult in the street (it tells you the offense). It's the kid stuff or rape I'm most concerned with.

Also agree, we have no vigilantes and pitchforks (nor do I read about any in the news) BUT there aren't any in my town. I'm pretty sure, being an extremely small town, that they'd be asked to leave if they did.

Ive dealt with a 12 year old girl who gave birth because her convicted sex offender step dad raped her for 4 years. Tell her mum how much of a wrong idea it is. That they have to live somewhere!

As it was the step dad I assume she knew where he was.

And where is he now? Not at the same address that will be listed on any database showing the address from newspapers, do you want vigilantes going to their house (mum and daughter)?

Someone I know found out they were living next door to a sex offender (teacher found to have images of child abuse on his computer, found guilty, sacked from job, lots of press coverage). It's a rural location so when I say next door it is the nearest house, on the same lane but 100 yards away. A member of the family went to the offender's door and said if he so much as looked at any of the children in the family, he was a dead man, and asked if he understood. The offender said yes, he understood. As far I know that has been the end of the matter.

The rest of the village tried to set up a vigilante group and, well I don't know exactly what happened with them. The person I know who stays nearest this offender refused to get involved with the angry mob.

Another couple I know stayed next door to a teacher who was in all the papers for having sex with a pupil. They all feuded and both families have since sold and moved away.

I'd like to have the information if there was an offender nearby, but don't think there'd be anything I'd do with the info.