Potentially dodgy stepfather - what to do?

[doristheterrible]

I am looking for advice on a situation within my family. In brief, my sister has got together with a new man - been together for a couple of years' now. This man is a creep. He has a habit of brushing (just short of groping!) boobs when he gets the opportunity, and generally is far too tactile, in all the wrong places, again when he gets the opportunity. For example, letting his hand brush over your bum when kissing hello.

He does this in plain sight of other people but it is cleverly subtle, and so far no member of my family has had the balls (probably wrong choice of language!) to confront him directly about it, although most female members (apart from my Mum - surprise!) have experienced it first hand. We have though mentioned this several times to my sister who gets very angry and upset and denies all knowledge, suggesting that he is just 'friendly.'

Anyway, we could probably just about live with having a creep in the family, but the trouble is she has a young teenage daughter. On several occasions we have had to endure watching him touch her in what we consider an inappropriate fashion - playing with her hair, holding her hand, stroking her face, etc. We possibly might think this was OK, if it was not for the context. As it is, it is almost unbearable to watch. We are really worried about it. Not necessarily that he might take it further, but really that no potential stepfather should be touching his teenage stepdaughter in this way - or to be honest, at all.

Are we over-reacting ie being unreasonable? What would you do? There is no way my sister will leave this man.

He's doing it to everyone in public to normalise the behaviour and to reinforce the belief that it's 'just the way he is, touchy feely, everyone knows what he's like but he's a good guy really'
I'd bet if he isn't already acting even more inappropriately towards your DN in private he soon will be.
what's worrying is that your sister is refusing to aknowledge his behaviour is wrong.
call him out on the behaviour when you can and talk to your DN but I'm not sure if that will be enough.

Ugh. She's being groomed. In plain sight.
Start digging, start speaking up.

This makes my blood run co!d.

When I was 14, I used to still stay with my dads ex as I liked staying and we got on well. She had a new partner. He commented on my "long legs" to her whilst I was wearing shorts so he was blatantly eyeing me up. I was trying to be all big saying I liked a certain beer (I didn't really and didn't really drink, had had a sip once) so he bought it for me. When I was 15 he abused me over a 2 week period when I spent a lot of time there. It was only when he started talking about wanting to sleep with me, and me knowing I'd be too scared to say anything, that I stopped going there. My 10 year old sister was leaning forward in her pyjamas one day so you could see down her top and he commented to my dads ex that she (my sister) could do that when she was 16. This was after he started abusing me. I was horrified.

A few months later, after breaking down in school, it all came out. My dads ex wanted to talk to me but I couldnt face it. He denied it and after making a video to the police I to!d them I didn't want to take it any further. She married him.

Years later they split and my siblings were told not to tell anyone why. At my sisters engagement, driven by alcohol I spoke to my dads ex. Turned out he got a 17 year old pregnant so he certainly liked them young and it wasn't just how much he liked me which is what he used to tell me. My dads ex said he was very convincing at saying he didn't do anything and because I was refusing to talk to her, she believed him. I didn't ask outright but I I'm fairly sure she does believe me now.

Please do something. Your neice really is in immenant danger from this creep. His grooming of her is far worse and I can guarantee it will step up a gear, if it hasn't already. Many teenage girls will be flattered by the attention of an older man and they count on this and the fact that no one calls him on it.

I am pretty aghast at your sisters reaction. My mum has a boyfriend who did this both to me and my Aunty. We told her, she confronted him and ended the relationship immediately. He denied it all, but I know what happened. I was v early stage pg at the time and he groped my bum as soon as we were introduced. Disgusting. I called him out on it myself when it happened but he denied it of course, I had just misinterpreted, he was being friendly

Your niece however is a child and needs to be protected from this man. Call him out loudly and often, in public when you can, keep pushing this with your DSis, DON'T let it lie.

I would be very worried about this. I am no expert, but my limited reading has indicated that Abuse/offending is a cycle- it starts with having to overcome your own inhibitors about commiting abuse, then once you get over this you have to get over the external inhibitors (eg other people noticing and stopping you). He may be someone who is testing this out in order to later take it further (and getting off on the power of being able to carry out these acts on all of you).

He is getting away with groping women in public. Your niece is either learning that it's something you all accept so she should too, or he could be grooming her. I wouldn't want to be the person who thought it might be happening and didn't stop it.

Regardless of whether his motives are more sinister or not, Touching people without their consent is not ok.

I've worked with children for years and worked within safe guarding children for many years.

Please report this he is grooming your niece and your sister in front of everybody.

It's not unheard of for men like this to be public and sadly it's not unheard of for whole family's to ignore what's going on out of embarrassment which is what's going on here.

It can and I'm pretty sure will only get worse if left to go on.

This all sounds very similar to my mum's partner and the way he was so tactile with my dd. I'm now no contact with them both. There were other contributing factors for me going NC with my mum, but seeing how her DP was grooming my dd was the catalyst to putting it in place.

If you can, as others have said as well as calling him on his inappropriateness, I would consider calling SS, even just for some advice. It's good that you're planning on talking to everybody, the more it's talked about the more it's brought into the open and seen as wrong.

Can you get your husband or another man to have a word with him?

Please do something. Your silence is enabling this man

At a party I called out a groper. I told him to 'get your fucking hands off me now'. I then announced what he had done. Despite the fact I was wearing a very short dress everyone believed me. Two other women told everyone that he had groped them earlier that evening but hadn't wanted to mention it.

Call him out on it.

OP not only is your sister enabling an abuser to abuse her child you are enabling an abuser to abuse your niece by saying nothing and not speaking to social services.

There is a miniscule chance this is fine but I think we all know it is not fine and no one is doing anything at all to protect this child.

You all should be ashamed of yourselves.

Doris, I've just re read the posts and saw what you said about feeling there was enough to report him. Hopefully you can see from the posts from those who've worked in safeguarding or with abusers or survivors that there is enough to ask the question and discuss your concerns with a professional. If you don't feel comfortable talking to social services then it might be easier to talk to the NSPCC this is a link to their report abuse page www.nspcc.org.uk/what-you-can-do/report-abuse/ you can do this anonymously if you prefer. This is a tough thing to do but you can do it

Telling Social Services won't mean that they immediately swoop in & break up your sister's family, if that's something you're worrying about.

Initially they gather evidence & watch & wait (unless something truly dreadful has happened, of course). Over time they build up a file of bits & pieces until a clearer picture emerges.