*possible trigger topic* AIBU paedophile in the family

[Anon112233]

Looking for some advice on a difficult situation.

My husband's brother is a convicted paedophile. He was charged with serious sexual offences against a family member and was released from prison earlier this year.

My husband and his family have all forgiven his brother and had contact whilst in prison and continue see him regularly now.

My husband and I have a baby and, to date, I have refused to allow my brother-in-law to meet her. However my husband is becoming increasingly frustrated by this and wants his brother to be allowed to meet his niece and for us all to attend family events together so long as he is always supervised.

I'm very reluctant to agree to this. Although we can easily supervise contact now as our child is not yet mobile, when she grows up she will move around the house by herself and, short of trailing after her (I'm picturing waiting outside the bathroom etc!!), I don't see how we can ensure constant supervision. Additionally, as she grows up I don't want to have to explain to my child the reason she can never be alone with her uncle!

Also, my husbands parents have regular contact with my brother-in-law and clearly do not consider him to be a threat. If they have seen that we allow our child to have occasional contact, how can I ensure that they do think it's okay to let him have contact when babysitting etc?? I feel like a blanket 'no contact' rule is more straightforward than 'he is allow to have contact when we are there but we don't trust you to protect her'.

If I decide to continue with no contact, am I within my rights as a parent to make that decision even if my husband disagrees?? How do I explain my feelings to him/help him understand my point of view when he clearly loves and trusts his brother and would like him to be involved in our lives? Do you think I am being unreasonable? Would occasional supervised contact be such a bad thing?

Would ss consider my husband and I to have put our child at risk by allowing supervised contact? And is there anyone we need to inform if supervised contact does take place?

Sorry, lots of questions and they may not make sense but my head is a bit jumbled trying to process this!! Any advice would be gratefully received xx

This is horrific situation
I feel incredibly sorry for the victim what a fucking headwreck from your extended family too. I have seen similar unfortunately

There are two peadophiles in my extended family and as a child, I would go back to our home country unaccompanied and stay with various relatives in summer for weeks at a time aged 5 onwards.

I asked my mum about this as an adult her view was I hadn’t been abused so it was fine.

She felt one “seemed to prefer boys” and only suspected him at the time (fast forward 15 years and it turns out he molested 3 girls and 2 boys).
the other one she knew about for definite but at the time always told me not to sit on his lap/avoid being alone with him .

The reason I am telling you this is because my mother is not negligent - she would crawl over broken glass for me, yet still did this. 4 of my cousins were abused - all are very badly damaged adults only 1 has anything like a “normal life”

Do not underestimate Family pressure and the “don’t make a fuss”/“don’t be difficult”/“don’t make it unpleasant for everyone” factor, Combined with a paedophiles ability to groom adults is a deadly combination.

You are right to be on high alert and also right to refuse any visitation /access as it blurs lines and becomes confusing for all parties over time
I still find it jaw dropping my mother and her siblings were so reckless

Also to confirm what other have said having worked in this field:
Paedophiles cannot be reformed, they are what they are.

There's also the issue of an immense culture of silence.

So with my relative, his oldest sister knows (it was in the newspaper) and has cut off all contact. The younger sister does not know, or perhaps doesn't know exactly what it was, so still sees him. The older sister feels tied by the fact that it's a small rural community and she's a primary school teacher, so although she doesn't want to hide what he's done, she doesn't feel she can shout from the rooftops my brother is a nonce for fear of the fall-out she'd then receive in her job.

Don't underestimate the way the whole of society creates an atmosphere where secrecy and collusion thrive. Including creating that atmosphere by some of the attitudes we've seen on this thread - knee jerk reactions of "you must force your DH to sort his shit out immediately or you're as bad as him and his family", when in fact it is not in OP's power to force her DH to sort his shit out - she can only play the best game she can with the cards she's been dealt. Yet those knee-jerk reactions are part of what creates the society-wide culture of collusion and cover-up - because it then becomes easier not to speak out than to say something and have to fire fight the knee jerk stupidity as well as the actual situation in hand.

I would echo what many other posters have said, paedophiles don’t just groom their victims, they groom entire families. There is always as excuse, some sort of “poor me” that they use to try and make others feel sorry for them and that it isn’t their fault they are a disgusting human being.

My best friend has an uncle who was convicted of abusing his own daughter. My friend has 2 dc and this uncle wrote to her and her kids from prison, she returned the letter to the prison with a solicitors letter asking why a convicted sex offender was being allowed to write to children. He hasn’t written again.

He was released on parole and most of the family have forgiven him. He confessed to the abuse but apparently it only happened “twice” and it was because “he was drunk and his wife left him.” Now I’ve known people do some crap when they’re drunk but I’m pretty sure most grown men don’t turn into paedophiles after too many beers.

His poor victim meanwhile has been ostracised from the family, she’s on her own now as they all forgiven him for having such a terrible time in prison etc. My friend made it very clear this man will NEVER have contact with her kids, even to the point of refusing to send pictures of her kids to other family members who regularly see the offender as it makes her feel so uncomfortable.

Stand firm OP, it’s definitely worth trying to find out what his parole conditions are and if authorities are aware he has contact with his victim and possibly other children.

Absolutely not, I would never put my child in that situation

Paedophiles do not just stop being attracted to children. He maybe able to control himself but who knows. I wouldn’t risk it.

Is he allowed children? Has he hit cinditions if release?

@marthamay Sun 08-Jul-18 09:28:53

The op described him as a convicted paedophile.

That is an adult person attracted to prepubescent children. So as long as OP has used the right wording (and we have no reason to think she hasn't) this wasn't a 15 & 19 yr old.

So it isn't wrong for us to assume that it is in fact a prepubescent child who was abused.

Stand your ground OP.

For those posters suggesting you re-evaluate your relationship etc. My concern would be that you and your DH disagree about this to such an extent that you end up splitting up.

DH gets your DD (maybe even 50% of the time) and allows his DB access to her while she's with him - and you are not around to protect her.

Do you think showing your DH this thread would help him to see that his brother is grooming the family?

It might help to hear it from someone other than you, that this is seriously fucked up and could have devastating consequences for your child.

Under absolutely no circumstances would I ever be letting anyone like that anywhere near my children. You need to put your foot down on this one OP and stand your ground. If that upsets your inlaws, well tough. The safety of your child comes above everything else.

When I was a child my grandfather got my cousin alone in a shed and sexually assaulted her. She was 15 at the time and I was 10. She told her parents who told mine. Everyone completely ignored the issue and brushed it under the carpet. My parents still left me alone with him afterwards. He didn't ever do anything to me, but that's not the point. He COULD have and they were willing to take that risk despite knowing what had happened to my cousin.

Fermat thank you for the advice on this thread, the first post you wrote about the stages sent chills through my spine!

Absolutely not. Is your DH insane?

Stand. Your. Ground.

Thinking about this again, I am absolutely horrified that your bil’s victim is being expected to socialise with her abuser! The lack of respect for and concern for your bil’s victim is horrific!

I think that your dh is behaving in a very toxic manner! His boundaries are so completely skewed that there is absolutely zero way that you can allow your dh to have unsupervised contact with your dd! At the moment, he is putting no thought into the danger his brother poses! No normal, protective and loving Daddy would want to take their tiny baby daughter into a nest of vipers within the lions den! I would be asking why he wants to present your tiny daughter to a Monster who has destroyed so many lives! Ask him why he thinks his relationship with his brother is more important than the safety of your daughter. Or in fact, whether his relationship with his brother is more important than the sickening abuse that his brother put their relative through?

It disturbs me that your dh and his family feel that they get a say on forgiveness! Their Monster brother and son didn’t sexually abuse them, they don’t get to ‘forgive’ him for his evil behaviour! I so hope that they are not forcing his poor victim to ‘forgive’.

I would definitely stand strong and refuse to budge on this! Contact the police and his probation officer! I would imagine part of the condition of his parole is to stay x amount of distance away from his victim and away from all children! Contact social services and let them know that his poor victim is being forced to be at the same family events as her abuser! Tell them he is seeking contact with your baby girl! Tell them your in laws and your dh are trying to pressurise you into allowing that monster contact with your tiny baby! Tell them you are prepared to end your marriage to keep your dd safe, however you are terrified that your dh would then allow that monster access

The victim still has contact at big family occasions, I think because she doesn't want to stand up to her family and has expressed sympathy for her abuser. I'm hoping that my refusal to let him see our child might help her to see that she is free to make her own choice about contact and doesn't have to go along with what her family are doing

Based on this comment I would be running for the hills with my child.

No fucking way would I let my kid see him. He can be openly remorseful all he likes but there's obviously something sick and twisted in his brain to make him do that in the first place - that does not go away because he did some time in jail. It was an offence against a family member too, which your child is. If your husband won't support you with this then I'd be tempted to LTB. How is keeping your child away from a known paedophile something that's up for debate?? No idea how they've managed to forgive him, they must be on crack.

@fermats, great posts and I agree fully however she can get a prohibited steps order banning family taking her children into contact. I have one stating that my children are forbidden from being brought into contact with a relative. Obviously to take this step the OP is risking the complete breakdown of her family and you are working on the basis that people would not risk going to prison to facilitate contact. There was no conviction in my case so I imagine it would be reasonably easy for the OP to get one.

The victim still has contact at big family occasions, I think because she doesn't want to stand up to her family and has expressed sympathy for her abuser

This is very odd. I would be checking his parole conditions because it would be very rare that this would be allowed.

Also, I don't think that parent having contact with a child as your PILs do, necessarily means they don't think he's a threat. Just because people have chosen to keep contact does not mean they are lessening his crime.

Has he completed any sexual offender rehabilitation program? Is he receiving treatment anywhere? Does he still see his parole officer?

I was seriously abused as a child, I can still see why parents would keep contact with their child - a person who has offended once is much less likely to reoffend with a good support network around him.

I would be asking many more questions before making any decision regarding your daughter, although the decision you have made to date, has of course been acceptable.

As a victim of childhood sexual abuse, please do NOT allow your daughter to meet him. The man that raped me repeatedly had also been convicted previously and went on to abuse his own stepdaughter when my parents did not support me when I made the disclosure.

As a parent, the onus is in YOU to protect your child. You and your husband know that he is a convicted paedophile, and yet your husband seems intent on quite literally serving your kid up on a plate. If anything was to happen in the future, the police and social services will say they you KNEW he was a risk, you KNEW he had convictions and you have allowed it to happen. There is a very good chance you will loose your daughter as you will have allowed it to happen.

There are different types of paedophile. The opportunist that does it just for shits and giggles when the chance presents itself and the type that is sexually attracted to kids/babies. Both are hideous monsters. Do you really want to sit in a room with him cooing over your baby? watching her nappy change? saying she is beautiful and bouncing her on his knee? What if he is thinking about raping her while he is smiling at you? do you actually WANT to go through that shit?

If the answer is yes then you do not deserve a child. Your husband can go fuck himself. I would have serious concerns about him that he wants to feed her to a monster. A blanket ban is the only way to protect your child. When they say "But why cant dirty uncle Bill see the baby?" you just reply with "You mean you want to introduce my baby to dirty uncle Bill, the convicted paedophile that is known to prey on vulnerable family members?" and keep on repeating.

DO NOT LET THIS MAN INTO HER LIFE!! And no court in the world would allow your husband to take her to see him against your wishes, its your job to protect her. Not offer her up as a bloody sacrifice.

I also find it really unusual that your BIL would be allowed to have any unsupervised contact with any child - again he will know what he is and isn't allowed to do.

And no court in the world would allow your husband to take her to see him against your wishes

You do realise that this is bollocks I'm afraid. Paedophiles can have unsupervised access to their own children even if it's against the wishes of a non-offending mother.

Namethatchange
That a parent should have to go to such extremes is unfathomable. A prohibitive steps order may be needed in this case.

I am concerned for the abused girl in this family. How old is she op? Can you tell the police / his parole officer what is going on? He must be breaking his release conditions if he was only recently let out of prison.

He must be breaking his release conditions if he was only recently let out of prison.

Unless there were multiple victims and she never approached the police in the first place, at that point he wouldn't be breaking his parole conditions.

It's very, very odd he's allowed any contact with her if she is the reason he is in prison.

Sensitive topic here. I have a convicted child sex offender relative. He's still in prison and somehow I've got to broach with my family that my kids will never be allowed to see him again.

And with my kids too.

It's shit. But my first priority has to be with my children, my role as parent is to protect them.

If your husband doesn't see this, then he needs done therapy. There's not a hope in hell I will ever take my kids near this relative ever again. I am going to be as NC as possible. He needs to do the same.

Totally agree paedophilia is a brain disorder, it's not something btgat can be therapied out, in the same way gay conversion therapy is bullshit too. My family will minimise it (psychological comfort to pretend it's all 'better') but I'm not walking that road. No way.

My uncle attempted to kiss me and fondle me when I was 14. I pushed him away, but attempts were frequently made until I was 19. Then when I was 30, he tried again. I warned him if he'd try again I'd tell my dp, who is a lot bigger and stronger than him.

I was worried he may have tried this with my younger cousin, but from my 'gentle' questioning it appears not.

However I made a mental note- if I had daughters he would never have contact with them.

I wish I had the courage to speak up, but I don't believe the 'family' would believe me. I am now NC with them all. This works for me.

Please protect your daughter and the victim if possible, even just letting her know you are on her side and she's not alone.

The family are protecting him and not the victim. They are putting her in a vulnerable position.
I've seen this before... I've seen families actually ostracise the victim in defence of the perpetrator. I've seen this 3 times and it's always the same. It's almost like the family would rather do anything other than admit their relative is a monster! It's like the have these blinkers on by choice because it's easier to believe that the victim is lying. It so fucking frustrating. It splits families up and makes life worse again for the victim.
@Anon112233 if you allow your daughter any type of contact with this man, you are condoning the behaviour of the wider family and kicking the victim once again. Please, I beg you go NC with this bastard. He will never change. He will always be what he is!

Auntlydia
Hugs to you. I’m so sorry for what you went through. That your parents could let this happen is sickening. I agree. If he goes on to abuse ops child, people will be saying and acting exactly as you said in your post.