People you had a sixth sense about and were right

[HarryPotterISreal]

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?

"Was always creeped out by a youngish (early 30s) male teacher at my school but he was wildly popular and all my friends adored him and had crushes on him. A couple of years after I left school it came out that he'd been 'in a relationship with' (i.e. grooming) a 15 year old student."

Ha! Exact same ShapeofEwe. I wonder if we were at the same school? Was he an English teacher, Mr. H by any chance?

Nooo! He was a Science teacher, wore a very funky burgundy suit with extra wide lapels (late 80’s pop star stylee)

girlandboy

I met a journalist once - she was a friend of a friend - who covered the Soham case and a lot of them didn't suspect Huntley at first, including her, because he was so helpful and friendly, bringing them tea and chatting about the local paper. I think she said it was a veteran reporter for PA who called it - he thought there was something off about him.

Ian Huntley made himself suspicious by insinuating himself into the investigation, ffs - something very frequently done by the guilty party. Precisely no-one saw him in a background shot, and said ‘Navy polo neck. Deffo. You heard it hear first.’ And I’m sure a lot of people’s sixth-sense super-dads thought Christopher Jeffries was definitely guilty 🤔

Yep..a guy I grew up with (our families were v close). When he became a teacher I told my mum that there was something off with him and in the future at some stage he would be done for having inappropriate relationships with students. I knew really really strongly that I was right but had no evidence. My mum told me to be quiet as that's how rumours get started. I agreed so didn't discuss it any further. Fast forward quite a few years...he has been in court for having many inappropriate relationships with students, those he had sex with were over 18 so he didn't get a criminal record but he has been struck off. I am sure there are more that still haven't come out. My mum then came to me and said 'you knew'....and I learned trust your gut!!!!

The chapter in Malcolm Gladwell's book "Blink" on "thin slicing" is very interesting about the cues we pick up and how quickly we do it.

One fascinating one was a psych experiment involving really short- 30 second or so - video clips of people early on in their marriages. It turns out that it's possible to get a fairly good read on how likely a couple are to divorce, way before the couple themselves are aware of any cracks in the marriage, just from watching them have an ordinary conversation - little things like one partner suggesting "the wrong choice" for dinner, and the other one rolling their eyes in disdain. I guess a few of us may have had examples of going to weddings not really knowing the couple that well (perhaps they're friends or relatives of one's DH) and just thinking "this'll never last."

My first impressions of people are usually right. Not a bad thing about him but Once I met my boyfriends (now dh) flatmates father, very briefly whilst we were both visiting them at uni. Literally just a hi/bye situation. I knew about his family. Happily married parents/ father had good job, a perfect family from the outside. A few months later dh told me that x’s father had died sudden but they didn’t know how, I said he’d killed himself, I was 100% sure. And he had. Very suddenly and tragically. I also got a creep vibe from one of our school teachers whom everyone else seemed to love, staff and students. He went on to have a full blown sexual relationship with a 15 yo student (got her pg) then left the school suddenly.

Another one who knew about Ian Huntley.
Many years ago, we moved to a rural village. There was a couple there and the husband was a Solicitor who worked nearby to my husband. He used to offer my husband lifts into work sometimes as we only had one car.
He and his wife offered to babysit our two young sons, but something made me very wary and I kept making excuses.
After we left, he was convicted for child sex offences against his step son and his step sons friend who also lived in the village. We used him to draw up our Will. I never felt good about him though.

I used to think that I was a very bad judge of character, but it's more that I tended to ignore my first reactions to people. I was too worried about people liking me to think for a moment about whether I liked them, or if they were safe to be around.

Yes I was the same. Having been abused, bullied and neglected I am a walking cliche. I realise if I look back the signs were there I ignored my gut and tried to be ‘liked’.
I don’t now though

I remember seeing a documentary about jimmy saville and one of his victims said upon a first meeting “he knew (she was vulnerable and had stuff happen to her before) they all know”.
That too resonated with me, there must be a sixth sense for the vulnerable.

My first thought when I saw my ex-boyfriend was "you're going to break my heart".

Before we had even spoken.

When I was a kid I met a Christian missionary and felt so sick to my stomach suddenly that I threw up. Turns out they had been abusing children in Nairobi, it came out a year later.

I can echo Shirley Ballas she is just dire.

A Catholic priest many years ago, something about him seemed rather odd but this was before all the stuff we know now about some priests and child abuse. He got a conviction for assault and later on was found to have child pornography but wasn't sent to prison for that one.

I googled him and he was later living on a sea front in a Welsh town near a leisure park

Friend who had to go out and visit a customer, after the first time she refused to go on her own, nothing bad actually happened he just gave her the creeps. He got convicted of 3 rapes recently.

Off topic, but did anyone read The Gift of Fear and get the feeling that Gavin de Becker was untrustworthy himself?

His presentation smelled to me of used car salesmanship, and I gave up reading when he recounted an anecdote about a girl on an aeroplane which I felt was a lie (as he reported it). I followed my instinct and chucked the book!

I couldn't stand Savile as a child. He gave me the creeps.

There's a 'clown' around the corner from where I work. He has one of those trick cars and stuff. He gives me the chills. I find him very sinister.

I'm always right and it is a survival thing.

The saddest is my younger sister I know siblings can be rivals but the gut feeling she has always given me has been proven correct.

She has no moral compass whatsoever. Her behaviour when our Mother died recently plumbed new depths. Her children have been to prison and she has taken part in criminal activity herself and has been sacked for stealing from various jobs. She never took me in but she is charming and takes in many. She uses people horribly.

We consider her to have strong traits of psychopathy,

I can read people very well, some of my friends have actually got me to 'vet' people they were dating in the past. Must say, I'm a decent 99% right!

Worst was someone I used to work with. Massive creepy vibes, I hated going near him or having to speak - there was an inside joke on our desk about him giving off paedo vibes and him coming over to us just because our window looked over a school. He got arrested a few weeks later and work computers had to be searched by police. Turned out he was an actual convicted paedophile who had changed his identity to avoid detection!

When we first met her, I noticed my mother in law had the coldest eyes I had ever seen. She also insisted on mispronouncing my mother's name despite several corrections. I hated her on sight and nearly walked away.

She turned out to be a nasty, vindictive, controlling narcissist and we went no contact very soon after we were married. We're still together after 37 years but that bloody awful woman nearly ruined it.

There was a dad at the school a while ago. Can't say I liked him. Something in the way he spoke to his wife just seemed unpleasant. I liked her but just low-key tried to stay out of his way. Still came as a real shock when he was convicted of child sex offences.

Tessliketrees I think picking up on potential violent misogynists isn't a spooky 6th sense thing but rather a (unconscious?) survival technique for women.

Unfortunately, as this website is testament to, not all of us possess this skill.

Re Jimmy Savile, I think that's what makes it all the more galling, that so many of us as kids couldn't stand the man, and yet the adults around him did nothing.

I worked somewhere once, where a guy twice my age (I was 17), used to keep coming and chatting to me. He was married and first of all I just thought he was being kind to the newest (and youngest) member of the team.

After a while he started walking the same way I did when I went home (he had a car and lived in a different direction). He also started asking about my boyfriends and if I didn't have one would I go out with him (hypothetically of course). He would also hang around until everyone else left (I had to lock up).

I was so freaked out by him that I him and had to have a big meeting with management higher up. They told him to leave me alone and stop following me home. I was quite embarrassed because they all thought he was a lovely man and that I was exaggerating.

Two months later he stabbed his wife, and ended up in a MH unit.

Spidey sense was definitely working for me. Looking back I am quite impressed with myself that I didn't just brush it off and I took it too management at 17.

I think I am good at subconsciously 'reading' other people, but it's only recently that I've realised that not everyone has the same skill, or acknowledges their gut feel and acts upon it.

I had a boss at work who used to publicly lie about things (and later be found out). I used to say to co-workers "he's so clearly lying, can't you tell?" but they couldn't. It seemed so clear and obvious, as if everything about his eyes, his speech intonation and his body language was screaming the fact.

Never liked/ trusted my friend's boyfriend at uni - always felt he was sly and a cheat. Sure enough, he had an affair and left her after they were married.

Jimmy Saville/ Rolf Harris - uurgh - would never watch them on TV as they made me feel weird and dirty, even when I was very young.

Apparently lots of people like to think they "had a feeling" about saville and Harris. If that's so why were they so popular? Harris especially.

I could say I've got negative feelings about lots of people. If it later turns out they're bad it doesn't mean im more perceptive than anyone else. It could just mean im rewriting history to make it seem like i am.

As for Ian Huntley - wouldn't anyone be suspicious of a school janitor inserting himself so firmly into the publicity of the case?

Just remembered my best friends new (now ex) boyfriend when I first met him he gave me the shivers, but she was smitten so I said nothing - it took her several years to tell me he was violent and financially abusing her, she's now married to a man who doesn't give me any dodgy vibes thankfully. Also I often get a feeling when someone I know is pregnant.

I am a good judge of character. Most people brush it off as me being mean until my original opinion of the person becomes obvious.

When I was in primary school we got a new head teacher who insisted on taking pictures (without parental consent) on his first day to’get to know us’ . He also told mr off for something minor by getting a cm from my face and shouting so all of his spit went on my face . I instantly disliked him.

I was once sent to his office by my teacher to show some work he was very impressed with. I walked into his office and he shut the door behind me , I felt instant terror and my hair stood on end I still remember this feeling 20 years later, and he looked at my work with his hand on the small of my back the whole time.

A few months later he was convicted for indecent imagines of children as young as 4. I’ve never felt so ill in my life.

He also arranged a whole school sleepover and ‘volunteered’ to do the night shift and walked around the room shining torches into our faces all night.

We also had a family friend who was my aunties partner for a while. He just radiated an heir of wrong, he used to bring me presents and visit regularly but I hated him. He ended up physically abusing my auntie and my dad made it very clear he better never turn up at our house again .