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Original poster

People you had a sixth sense about and were right

481 replies

HarryPotterISreal · 30/07/2018 22:24

I’ve just been reading one of the spooky threads here and a poster talked about someone she got a bad feeling about and some months later was arrested for abuse or something. When someone is arrested who is a ‘pillar of the community’ someone always says ‘I never liked him, I could always tell’.

Do you have a story where you genuinely knew someone was bad news, though everyone else thought they were wonderful? How could you tell and did others eventually see their true colours?

OP posts:
Hofty · 03/08/2018 11:55

@Daisymalone I agree entirely!!

Sirrah · 03/08/2018 12:18

My Grandma was married to a man who made my skin crawl, even as a child. I found out later that he'd beaten my dad when he was a teenager, tried it on with my mum, and sexually abused my cousins.

bananafish · 03/08/2018 12:25

I tend to trust my instincts even when (especially?) when they seem to go against the prevailing wind.

I worked with a man who was the absolute ‘golden boy’ of the organisation. He was promoted quickly, listened to with respect, no one had a bad word to say about him.

I really disliked him - couldn’t stand him. He made my skin crawl. I just had such a visceral reaction to him. He was my boss for a short while and it was terrible even though he never actually did anything wrong. I just knew he was a fake and a wrong ‘un.

He left, so did I, and I forgot about him. Until he popped up in the nationals convicted of having child pornography and trying to set up sex sessions with a 6 yr old and an 8 yr old. I wasn’t even surprised. Shocked, but not surprised.

TSSDNCOP · 03/08/2018 12:54

I’d have bet my house on Ian Huntley’s guilt as soon as I watched that news interview.

MrStarkIDontFeelSoGood · 03/08/2018 14:49

Having just read the post about a long lost relative it interested me. Something similar happened in our family in the last few years and the relative has created nothing but discord since they arrived. My immediate family all find them very off and a troublemaker but another family within our extended has pretty much taken them to their bosom. They have effectively, Wendied us in our own family Shock

Strippervicar · 03/08/2018 16:32

I've been watching a few days. Very different to most experiences. I have a facial birth defect. It definitely sorts people into different camps.
I find it very creepy and offputting when I get the type of person who looks straight through me with an expression on disgust on their face. They are absolutely lovely and friendly to others, including the party I am with. They completely ignore me or anything I say.
This person is usually a man. Usually one who is quite interested in the ladies. I find it so creepy and offputting that they cannot bring themselves to treat me as a person and I wonder just what goes on inside their heads.
Noteable examples, school bus driver he sold cans of pop and sweets, used to chat to the other children. Used to say he'd run out of pop when I got there but served others who were after me.
Barmen. DH has to come and rescue me very often because I have been standing at a not so busy bar being ignored.
A man who was top dog in a drama group I was in. He never spoke to me or looked at me in five years. To the point of buying all my girlfriends a drink bar me.
The next door neighbours at my parents house as I was growing up. (A couple admittedly.) They mounted some sort of campaign against us as a family. It all came out it was due to them not wanting me near their children because I was different. He turned out to be physically abusing the wife and step daughter so I assume it was more him than her. I went round to ask for a ball once. He shut the door in my face.

Whipsmart · 03/08/2018 18:40

It's interesting how many people spotted that Jimmy Saville was a wrong 'un but were surprised by Rolf Harris. (I couldn't believe it either, even though a friend had met him on the set of his vet programme and said he as really unpleasant!)

Saville was an open secret it seems, lots of people knew about him but kept quiet because he donated loads of money and was a popular, powerful person. But he also had a very brash, show-off, basically ANNOYING persona. Rolf Harris came across as a kindly old chap, so basically he was just better at hiding it. Which is what makes him creepier in a way...

KateGrey · 03/08/2018 20:09

My dh’s previous boss. When he went for the interview he said he felt something was off that the guy wasn’t quite right. He still took the job and the guy did have some major issues. Very odd man. My dh now says he won’t touch a job if he gets a bad feeling about the boss.

Everyone likes these two professionals I’ve worked with. On the surface they seem very nice but I’ve always felt less so. I did a subject access request recently and what came back that they’d written wasn’t pleasant and really showed their true colours.

ZanyMobster · 03/08/2018 23:02

@Misscontrary my fault for skim reading sorry. Must be something about weather men. Yes FT was awful and did hideous things. FD is ok really, nothing in comparison.

MyShinyWhiteTeeth · 04/08/2018 02:57

I think we instinctively recognise different behaviour or anything odd - but we aren't fully conscious of what we're sensing.

I think harmless, eccentric behaviour can then be misinterpreted as being unsafe. I think we have to take care we don't exclude people for not fitting in.

But I also think deviant people hide behind eccentric behaviour. People recognise something is odd about them but assume the in your face eccentricities are what is triggering the recognition.

imsotiredofitall · 04/08/2018 04:54

i think harmless, eccentric behaviour can then be misinterpreted as being unsafe. i think we have to take care we don't exclude people for not fitting in

yes. you only have to look at the troll hunters on MN. i suspect many of those "trolls" are simply posters who post in a way that is a bit odd. i have seen posts on MN deleted for "trolling" when it is clear the posters are not neurotypical in some way or another.

likewise, i know many poeple hate Trump and he certainly has a bad past, however, i do not find him nearly as much of a threat as someone who is smooth and sociopathic. Trump wears his heart on his sleeve, he is so unsubtle. the really evil people know how to blend in and look normal much of the time

as regards the previous posters who mention Cliff Richard and the McCanns, with all due respect, you have not been proved right of anything. CR turned out not to be guilty and as for the MCs, nothing has ever been proven fully

QueenOfTheAndals · 04/08/2018 06:56

Cliff wasn't found not guilty, the case never went to trial.

Brown76 · 04/08/2018 07:43

Sometimes, but usually I don't have a clue, give people the benefit of the doubt, always the last to know about colleagues dating each other etc. My brother on the other hand reads people well. Took an immediate dislike to my close Friends's bf who I thought seemed ok, but turned out to be abusive. I'm also the sort of person who wouldn't know if someone fancied me, disliked me etc unless it was very obvious.

strawberrisc · 05/08/2018 09:16

Ok pedants. Leigh Francis. I just don’t like him.

Flipping it on it’s head my radar told me from day one that Christopher Jefferies was innocent.

user1497863568 · 05/08/2018 11:52

Lots of creepy people growing up but I think mass immigration has made things much better on that front.

FrazzledRockRed · 05/08/2018 15:03

What does immigration have to do with it?

Hushabyelullaby · 05/08/2018 22:17

This thread had made me download 'The Gift of Fear'. I'm on page 64 and it's fascinating reading. I've just come across a sentence that gets used a lot on MN. The author writes;

'I encourage people to remember that 'no' is a complete sentence'

FrazzledRockRed · 07/08/2018 22:10

If only people wouldn’t take advantage of it this would be a wonderful service: people who have this sense they can vet people for them.

blueshoes · 08/08/2018 00:03

I think harmless, eccentric behaviour can then be misinterpreted as being unsafe. I think we have to take care we don't exclude people for not fitting in.

But I also think deviant people hide behind eccentric behaviour. People recognise something is odd about them but assume the in your face eccentricities are what is triggering the recognition.

I agree with all of this

blueshoes · 08/08/2018 00:08

I was in a small cafe in France and we were served by a waitress who looked like she might be the proprietress. She seemed perfectly friendly and took our orders but I had a strong feeling that she would try to pull one over us. Sure enough, when the bill came, she had overcharged us by 3 items. She was apologetic and all that but I was Hmm

mayandjuniper · 08/08/2018 00:31

One of my mum's friends. Always felt creeped out. Three years later he's in prison for raping a teen.

CanuckBC · 08/08/2018 17:05

Six sense is so hard as sometimes it’s accurate and sometimes it’s so far off! There have been times where I wish I had listened and others where I did and I was right. Nothing worth mentioning though.

Confiscatedpopit · 29/07/2021 15:19

APOLOGIES- Zombie thread- but the topic is just as relevant to me… (Google brought me here).

If you ever felt a colleague was sinister (and worked with those considered vulnerable) is there anything do you think you could do? Or do you just have to watch it play out?

I have NO EVIDENCE other than a huge gut feeling… but I know this person isn’t right. It’s not nice to see.

Bells3032 · 29/07/2021 16:48

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

LawnFever · 29/07/2021 16:53

My (now ex) SIL, never really liked her and once we were out in a group, she was walking ahead of me with my best mates partner and something clicked in me that something was wrong.

Turns out they were having an affair and the fall out was awful.

I can’t say how I knew, something minute in their body language maybe? They were just walking but I just knew.

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