Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

See all MNHQ comments on this thread

Original poster

To not want my DC around him?

235 replies

UseYourFingers · 26/03/2015 14:45

My sister has been with her partner for 9 years, getting married in December. He has a 17 year old daughter from a previous partner. Was chatting with the daughter and she mentioned it was her mums 30th birthday party coming up. I presumed I'd misheard but mentioned it to my sister, and she confirmed that her DP got a 13 year old girl pregnant WHEN HE WAS 20!

This has made me feel really ill.

We are supposed to be going to Barcelona for her hen weekend in June and her DP was going to have all the kids, including my DD who is 12.
I've told her I don't want this to happen anymore and it's caused a huge argument. I'm not to attend the wedding until I've apologised to him.

I feel really bad. He has babysat before and I feel that I should have been made aware of all this. I've lost all sense of trust towards him and my sister.

I'm not at all implying that he is a paedophile but I can't shake off the notion that at one point in his adult life he was sexually attracted to a child. He was in a relationship with the girl until their daughter was 3.

I don't know what to do or think. Has anyone got any advice?

OP posts:
FrenchJunebug · 27/03/2015 17:13

I am not a child abuse apologist but we are talking is a man who had a relationship with a 12 year old WHICH IS WRONG as I have said. Had a child with her. Stayed to help raise the child, is still friend with the mum, raise a well rounded daughter, is having an adult relationship.

Who is to say the authorities were not involved 17 years ago?!

Is a 19 year old a grown man?!

I am not comfortable with the OP making lots of assumption about her niece, the mum and her sister without having spoken to them.

FrenchJunebug · 27/03/2015 17:24

I don't know perhaps I am naive but at least the OP should talk to him and the mum before calling the police.

BuzzardBird · 27/03/2015 17:38

Two girls I knew growing up were pregnant by older men when they were 13/14. No-one was prosecuted back then in the late 70's. It was a horrible time to be a teenager. I knew of many friends that were with men in their 20's, no-one batted an eyelid.

I am glad that you are doing something OP to protect your DC's.

NorahDentressangle · 27/03/2015 18:47

I agree with you FrenchJunebug - surely men can get treatment. It was 17 years ago she needs to find out the whole story.

NorahDentressangle · 27/03/2015 18:48

As others have said, an adult being sexually attracted to a child is not something that changes

Really? Where does it say this.

Andrewofgg · 27/03/2015 19:22

Maybe he has changed but why the hell should the OP risk it?

NorahDentressangle · 27/03/2015 19:27

No the OP shouldn't risk her DCs safety but the man is father to a happy and well adjusted 17 year old (it seems) should she be reporting him to the police over a historic event (unacceptable though it seems now).
Surely she needs the facts first.

Andrewofgg · 27/03/2015 19:32

There is no point in reporting him. If Social Services took no interest at the time (and if he is not a celebrity) nobody will be interested.

Someone upthread suggested that a DNA test would prove the case even if the mother refused to help. If the mother refuses to talk or provide DNA and the 17-year-old refuses her DNA - so much for that.

OP: keep your daughter away from him: never, ever leave them together: but don't feel called upon to report him. Not your job and can do no good.

ApocalypseThen · 27/03/2015 19:40

I am not comfortable with the OP making lots of assumption about her niece, the mum and her sister without having spoken to them.

Well, I have a niece. I'm not sure that it would be an outlandish assumption on my part to assume a duty of care to the girl which would be completely abdicated by allowing her to be cared for by a man with a history such as her fiancé's without letting the parents choose with full information. I can't imagine being with a man like that, but putting my niece at some potential risk? Unthinkable. The fact that the sister is apparently lost to this attitude tells me more than she'd articulate if you asked her, I think.

VixxFace · 27/03/2015 19:58

A 21 year old man tried to have sex with me when I was 13. was I abused?

I fancied him and we were drinking at my house then a week later at his uncles house. My mum was there as well.
I feel grubby reading this Sad

Original poster
UseYourFingers · 27/03/2015 21:47

Hi. I appreciate everyone's views, it was why I asked here.

The reason I am going to the police is not to report a crime, it's to see of I can access any information about him, if he is known as a sex offender and also just to log my concern. I doubt I would be able to report a crime that didn't happen to me 17 years ago.

I am mostly angry that it wasn't considered necessary that I should know his 'secret'. I can honestly say that my kids would have had nothing to do with him if I had have been able to choose.

If my sister had a pit bull that had mauled someone one years ago, but hadn't attacked anyone since, I would have kept my kids away. I see this as the same sort of thing. It's a dangerous and unnecessary risk.

OP posts:
Original poster
UseYourFingers · 27/03/2015 21:53

*once

OP posts:
DollyTwat · 27/03/2015 21:58

Op surely you can use Claire's law to find out? If you've ever seen the documentary as to how this law came to be, you'd want to use it

Andrewofgg · 27/03/2015 22:59

No DollyTwat if it was not even reported at the time there will be nothing to disclose even if the OP had standing which I don't think she has.

The age of this man's daughter and of her mother are all anyone needs to know, aren't they? Who needs chapter and verse?

DollyTwat · 27/03/2015 23:10

Op said she was going to the police to find out if he had any convictions. Claire's law will tell her if there is something to know

Andrewofgg · 27/03/2015 23:18

No Dolly Only the person who is thinking of setting up with the subject of the enquiry can ask. Not her sister or her brother or her mother or her best and dearest friend.

In any case - does it matter if he has convictions? He had intercourse with a twelve-year-old when he was no child. Who needs more? I don't think even the sister herself would be given more information when she knows that.

IfYouWereARiverIdLearnToFloat · 27/03/2015 23:50

French I feel sick to my stomach hearing your paedo apologist bullsh*t...

A man in his 20s who has sex with a girl of 12 is a paedophile. He will always be a paedophile & there is always a risk he will abuse another child.

The OP doesn't need to be concerned about ruining a sex offenders relationship with her sister. She is quite rightly worried about keeping her DD safe from a predator.

puds11isNAUGHTYnotNAICE · 28/03/2015 00:03

Why French? In case his relationship with an underage girl was deep and meaningful? Hmm Bullshit!

He is a peadophile. She was 12 FGS! 12!

OP you are doing the right thing here. You have to protect your children. If this was my sister, I would never see her again due to the risk she had posed towards her own niece. I cannot believe she would do that! Its unfathomable!

GatoradeMeBitch · 28/03/2015 00:20

It's amazing how much people will quietly accept so as not to rock the boat. There is a man in my family who sexually abused his stepdaughters during a previous marriage. But he's a good Christian now, so we all need to move on apparently...

There are some things that are impossible to move past. Getting a 12 year old child pregnant is one of them in my opinion.

GatoradeMeBitch · 28/03/2015 00:21

Is a 19 year old a grown man?! Yes. Is a 12 year old a grown woman?

anothernumberone · 28/03/2015 00:34

I really wondered how Jimmy Saville got away with his abuse for so many years..... Then I read this thread. Utterly depressing the amount of people here making excuses for a child abuser. Thank God the majority can see how wrong this man was.

NorahDentressangle · 28/03/2015 07:00

My feelings were for the abused 12 year old and her DD, who appear to have come to terms with the situation and lead stable and apparently happy lives, I would have thought step carefully.

TheUnwillingNarcheska · 28/03/2015 07:35

For the pedants there are 3 types of adult sexual attraction toward someone who is not an adult -

Paedophile - pre pubescent children
Hebephilia - early puberty - have started body change (approx 11 - 14)
Ephebophilia - later on in puberty (15-19)

The ages are a guide because of the variety of ages of children starting puberty. It comes under "chronophilia" which explains the sexual attraction limited to individuals of particular age ranges. There are others, such as those that love the elderly, but we'll stick to this thread. You can google chronophillia if you are really interested.

I have seen enough Dr Phil episodes. He says once a paedophile, always a paedophile and never put temptation in their way. Just because he is in a relationship with an adult woman it does not mean he has "grown out of" his attraction to young girls.

Gay men and woman marry and live a lie too. But they know they are gay.

Andrewofgg · 28/03/2015 07:53

So this bloke may have been a hebephile, not a paedophile. If she could get pregnant she had obviously started body changes, so that makes sense.

But since the OP's daughter is 12, if she is not on this man's radar she soon will be, and OP knows what she has to do. Whether that means n/c with her sister depends on other matters; how often do they see each other, how close do they live, how much contact do they want to keep up, perhaps by phone only, perhaps on occasions where there are others around and someone can keep an eye on DD.

OP If your DD's father is in the picture what the hell does he say about it?

LadyIsabellaWrotham · 28/03/2015 08:27

I assume that many of these predators on young but sexually mature girls (the Rochdale and other gangs for example) do so not because they have any specific sexual attraction to that age group, but simply because they find them easy to control. They're not sick, they're just bastards.

Swipe left for the next trending thread