Boiling with fury at friend's paedophile father **Trigger Warning**

[seriouslyconsideringbeingawful]

NC for obvious reasons.

For clarity, I was NOT abused by this man.

When I was growing up I spent many weekends with a friend, his brothers and their parents. They were friends of the family.

When I was in my early 20's the father of my friend was jailed for paedophilic crimes - serious and planned. All about the time when I was staying there.

I remain 'friends' with my childhood friend, largely on Facebook, and the odd email. We have never mentioned his father. I always presumed that it'd be hard enough having a parent who was a sexual predator without having to discuss it into adulthood. As far as I knew he had no contact with his father (he has children including a daughter).

Today he posted on Facebook that his father has cancer, asking for people who have survived similar to get in touch to help support, to see if he can arrange calls between his father and other survivors.

All I WANT to do is post on the thread about the crimes linking to the relevant news articles. Just so people know the type of man they'd be helping.

I know what I should do is unfriend old-friend, or at least block, and move on. But I'm furious about it, I'm furious that unwitting people will be speaking to and supporting this absolute arse-cunt who wantonly destroyed the lives of several young children and whose crimes are fucking appalling.

WIBU to follow my heart on this one, or should I step away quietly? I wonder about the legalities, but everything I would say is true and documented in the press, it's not slander/liable.

He's no longer in jail, he was released after a few years (also in the press due to the leniency of the sentence and early release) since then he's lived abroad (I know this from snooping), I don't know if he's in the UK now.

I know it's not my fight, I was lucky, the girls were the same age as I was at the time.

It turns out that I don't value the friendship of my friend that much as I've realised that I could de-friend and walk away and not really miss it (especially in the knowledge that his father is still in his life) but I don't want to cause my friend or his wider family pain, and I know I would.

Equally, I don't want to hold back and allow a predator into the lives of other people. But I know that if I responded to the FB post, it would be deleted, what good would it actually do... probably none.

I hope he dies. I know that's awful, but I do.

I tracked down my step-dad's new Mrs and her grown-up DD on facebook once. This man tried to gas my mum in the back of her car, is the reason I was taken away from her, would beat her black and blue, made me grow up comforting my baby brother when they were arguing and chairs were flying around. He even pulled a gun on her in front of me when I was around 7 or 8, while she help our baby sister in our arms.

I was furious that he had moved on and got a new life, with people who probably new nothing about his past. I told them everything, asked the new woman if she was happy that the father of her new child was a woman-beater and had destroyed my family. She was sweet to me...

Honestly, in your position, I would post the links and then block them all. I couldn't bare it, but I'm a spiteful person, or so they say...

No, Ropsley, but I just find it bizarre I suppose.

Children are everywhere. So are sexual predators. The onus is on us to keep them safe, not to 'name and shame.'

The family should be ashamed for sticking by him anyway. I mean, come on, a pedophile!? I don't think I would care how they feel, they should have cut him out.

As an aside, are you the only one of his friends that knows about his Dad's crimes? What I mean by that is you're saying people have the right to know, which I totally get, but surely some of them already do know?

I presume other people know, but we don't have friends in common so I'm not sure (friend and I have absolutely not mentioned his father since being in contact as adults, it wasn't something I was willing to ask about as I believed that my friend had gone NC with his father, and I didn't want to open-up old wounds).

I did wonder about an anonymous post (fake FB account) - but that feels like an underhand way to approach it when what I want to do is make the whole thing transparent and honest.

sunsurf

Easier to keep a child safe from a pedo when you know who the pedo is.

It's not awful to hope he dies, either.

Children are everywhere. So are sexual predators. The onus is on us to keep them safe, not to 'name and shame.'

So you think we should treat pedophiles as natural disaster that "just happens", like we do with alll male violence?

Rapists are everywhere, so women have to keep themselves safe instead of naming and shaming? Really?

Children are everywhere. So are sexual predators. The onus is on us to keep them safe, not to 'name and shame.' this is also true, vigilanteism is not okay, I don't want people out with their pitchforks actually, I kinda do, but I know it's not right.

Children are everywhere. So are sexual predators. The onus is on us to keep them safe, not to 'name and shame

This seems a tad contradictory. Surely we keep children safe if we know who the paedophiles are and what they're up to?

I'd want to know.

Also, do you agree that we should never let any male babysit children?

Because that's the only approach that is almost 100% safe. Naming and shaming known child rapists is the second best way of doing things.

Not naming known child rapists, all the while we let males babysit children ... how do you propose we "keep children safe"? Dressing them in modest clothes and hope this will deter child rapists, or what?

If I did comment, I'd probably go with something like:

"Omg Dfreind, him being ill must be so hard for you to deal with after all that he did - I can't imagine how hard it must be to reconcile my very ill dad with a convicted paedophile. I am here if you need me xx"

Not that I'm recommending that, of course...

I would stay out of it entirely. How would it help anyone to post something about this man's crimes?

And no, getting cancer has nothing to do with karma.

I have some relatives whose father was an abusive bastard. I won't even list all the horrendous things he did. He died a few years ago. My relatives still talk about the good times and post things on FB about missing him. I can't fully understand their actions but he wasn't my father. I don't have the same emotional attachment or the ambivalent feelings they must experience. So I just ignore their FB posts and make noncommittal mumblings when they mention him IRL. I did the same when he was still alive.

I would send him a private fb message to say, as nicely as you can, that you know it must be really hard for him, but given the circumstances does he really feel it's fair to ask people to help his father, without also letting them know what his father has done (and maybe mention the possibility that someone might agree to meet him, and might take their children along). I would tell him that I didn't want to have to comment publically on his post, but I would feel that I had to if he didn't take it down, as I wouldn't be able to forgive myself if anything happened. At least then it gives him a chance to remove it. I couldn't let this go- there's too much at stake, the sensitivities of your friend are trivial compared to potential consequences of withholding this information.

'Letting males babysit children'

Are you 100% sure that he's talking about his actual father in the posts about cancer, and not a stepfather or even father-in-law that he now calls Dad?

If there absolutely no doubt whatsoever that you think he is talking about his father the convicted paedophile, I think the best approach would be to take some screenshots, contact your local police station and explain that you're concerned that your friend is trying to arrange phone contact between strangers. I don't trying to deal with it yourself on Facebook is a very good at all.

This man might still be on the sex offender's register, in which case they would be able to remind him that he isn't allowed to receive any visits from people with children.

I'd also like to say to people who think that cancer is 'karma' really need to just stop. It's not 'karma'. Nice people get cancer, including small children, just as often as nasty people. By saying it's 'karma' you're implying that if someone gets cancer they must have done something wrong, which is just hurtful and unpleasant to the millions of people without a nasty bone in their body who suffer and die from cancer every year.

Could not disagree more with the posters telling the OP it's not her fight.

It's everyone's fight to stop the abuse of children and if more people spoke out like the OP is considering then the bastards wouldn't get away with it so much.

Shame on people who don't.

Are you 100% sure that he's talking about his actual father in the posts about cancer, and not a stepfather or even father-in-law that he now calls Dad? I just thought about that dolly, I have no idea whether his mother re-married, or had a partner.

My friend is a couple of years older than me, so the crimes would have been largely committed when he was 9 or 10. By the time his father was jailed I was in my early 20's.

IDK if his mother knew, maybe his father was on remand for years and only went to trial several years later, I don't know if they had split up before he was arrested (due to a family breakdown on my side, I didn't see my father's side of the family for a decade or so, and that was my connection to his family).

Interesting point about reporting it to the police, I hadn't thought of that. I'd imagine he's on an offenders register (I'd be even more horrified if not).

dollydaydream I was sitting here thinking I have no idea what I would do in the OPs position and what an awful moral dilemma to be in but then I read your post - 100% that is by far the best suggestion IMO.

We don't keep children safe at all by keeping them away from sex offenders.

Logicslly, to be a child sex offender, someone has to have harmed a child.

If someone goes to this mans house with a child and leaves the child unsupervised for a period of time then more fool them.

Agree with Dolly

Could not disagree more with the posters telling the OP it's not her fight. It's everyone's fight to stop the abuse of children and if more people spoke out like the OP is considering then the bastards wouldn't get away with it so much. Shame on people who don't.

I don't use Facebook so correct me if this is wrong as I don't know if the OP was talking about a private message but from the story it sounded like a public group thing. Confronting the man himself I would be in agreement with but posting on somebody's Facebook something like that when yes, he was related to him but not in any way part of the disgusting crimes committed I would find appalling. OP mentioned they have been friends since childhood but now only Facebook friends, I presume then that a lot of time has passed. Posting something like that could have serious consequences for the innocent friend and family and ruin their lives. Of course I wouldn't give two fucks about the father. But what if some vigilante decided to have a go at "the pedo's son" after they saw the OP's message?

The man is unlikely to have supervised access to his supporters children, a compromise would be to let the police and probation know and ask them to ensure their are no children present

I wouldn't throw the first stone - you never know what someone else has been through, not really. I imagine this is tough for your friend, as others have said. Also, many abusers were themselves abused - this is not in any way to reduce the enormity of their crimes which they committed as adults, but it may help you to wonder whether your friend's father was also a victim, as well as a perpetrator. Forgiveness is part of what lets societies move on - but is not the same as forgetting. You may also find too that his father is now too ill to place any other child at risk.