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AIBU?

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Original poster

AIBU: Teenage friend put on the sex offenders list for 'pantsing' someone at school

369 replies

Neonata · 11/02/2019 22:55

Last week one of my 15YO DS's closest friends pulled a classmate's gym shorts down in the changing rooms as a prank and unfortunately his pants also came down and he was momentarily exposed. The boy then escalated this and the friend has now been isolated for a day, then excluded for a day and also put on the sex offenders list!!

AIBU to think this is a massive over reaction by the school?? He is a lovely boy who is usually really well behaved and generally high achieving academically.

I'm wondering that this will demonise him so much that he will start thinking he is actually a bad person and it will be enough to send him down the wrong path.

OP posts:
Onceuponacheesecake · 12/02/2019 04:51

Perhaps stop relying on your teenage son to be a source of information. I don't think isolation or exclusion for a day is excessive. The school do not have the power to put someone on the SO list. I hope you're not passing this info on to other parents. A "good" kid wouldn't expose another child to all of heir classmates and completely humiliate them like that. It doesn't matter if he didn't mean to pull down their underwear.

Grumbling · 12/02/2019 05:04

He’s not a lovely boy. Lovely boys don’t set out to humiliate other people. He sounds like he has been rightly punished by the school. The sex offenders register thing sounds like typical teenage over hype and is clearly not true.

Ruru8thestars · 12/02/2019 05:24

If be really upset if this happened to my son. I’d have no sympathy for he ‘just larking about’ defense either

Nodnol · 12/02/2019 05:26

He isn’t a nice boy at all. He’s a bullying little twat. Your son should reflect on continuing to be his friend. Like attracts like after all...

katykins85 · 12/02/2019 05:32

😂 at OP taking the word of teenagers as gospel!

NorthernBirdAtHeart · 12/02/2019 05:43

Spot on @katykins85
And the boy who did this is a bullying twat

ApolloandDaphne · 12/02/2019 05:52

He is definitely not on the sex offenders register. Having worked alongside the police investigations abuse I know it takes a lot more than that and it does not happen quickly.

Awwlookatmybabyspider · 12/02/2019 05:58

Either your ds is exaggerating or the school is acting illegally. Regardless of what he's done. They don't have the powers or authority to put someone on the Sex Offenders register.

LilaJude · 12/02/2019 05:58

Your son has clearly got the wrong end of the stick but come on OP! You’re an adult! You must know it’s not possible for someone to just be put on the SOR?! Use some critical thinking skills!

Without knowing what punishment your son’s friend actually got it’s impossible to judge if it was proportionate or not. But pulling somebody’s underwear down was a) an entirely foreseeable consequence of pulling their trousers down, and b) a really shitty and humiliating thing to do. So it doesn’t surprise me that the school have decided to take it seriously. A teenage boy should know much better.

JenniferJareau · 12/02/2019 05:59
JenniferJareau · 12/02/2019 06:00

He is the total opposite of a bully by the way, which is why I sympathised so much with him.

Nope, he is an actual bully. Maybe a good idea would be to try and sympathise with the boy he humiliated.

MordredsOrrery · 12/02/2019 06:04

What Ruru8thestars said.

This was not a prank, it was bullying. Your DS's friend isn't coming across as lovely or good, however academic he may be.

You could try sparing a thought for the victim in all of this who is, in fact, the child who had their genitals exposed, not the horrible bully who did it.

AgentJohnson · 12/02/2019 06:06

Your son has clearly got the wrong end of the stick but come on OP! You’re an adult! You must know it’s not possible for someone to just be put on the SOR?! Use some critical thinking skills!

This

Be very careful OP, some people will judge your son by the company he keeps.

SD1978 · 12/02/2019 06:11

There has to be police involvement, a conviction. Sons friend has misunderstoood

Dimsumlosesum · 12/02/2019 06:14

Your son is a massive exaggerator...or liar. One of the two. Or both.

flumpybear · 12/02/2019 06:16

As others have said I also very much doubt he's on the SOR

What he did though was despicable though, so many kids get bullied, teased for years after that type of humiliation - some
Never get over it, some end up committing suicide - perhaps because of other pressures too, but seriously what he did was just nasty. He should be punished, whether it was out of character, he's academically bright ... who cares, he did it and he should rightly be punished harshly, send a message that this is highly unacceptable
SOR though, highly unlikely unless it's a
School equivalent ... then yes probably

BabyDarlingDollfaceHoney · 12/02/2019 06:20

What @steppemum said. Read the responses OP and tell us what the actual repercussions were. You're asking us to judge whether they're too harsh but it's very unclear what they were!

I think you'd be very foolish to downplay this to your son. His friend is a bully and exposing someone against their will is a horrible thing to do, even if you give it a cutesy name like "pantsing". I think the message to your son needs to be loud and clear that people deserve to give consent of any part of them is going to be exposed and his friends behaviour was totally unacceptable and there should be serious repercussions (whatever it turns out they were).

CasperGutman · 12/02/2019 06:26

Difficult to conceive of a situation where someone would have “accidentally” exposed themselves at the same time.

I think you've misunderstood. AIUI the "pantsing" would have been intended to involve pulling the other boy's shorts down to reveal his pants. The accidental part was that the other boy's pants came down with his shorts. The perpetrator was not exposed.

Pinkprincess1978 · 12/02/2019 06:42

The boy committed a bullying act so that does make him a bully.

The fact he hasn't committed (to your knowledge) bullying acts before doesn't make his bullying less bullying. Someone doesn't need to have stolen before to make stealing one thing make them a thief. And him being a good student has no baring on the matter.

As others have said he isn't on the register and given in his list of sanctions he hasn't mentioned the police have been called/involved I seriously doubt he is going on the sor but suspect the school have used this as a scare tactic about how something that seems innocent (to some, like you op) could be serious enough to get you on the register.

Finally, as far as I am aware there is only one sex offenders register so you could get people on who have shared naked/sexual pictures of a partner (either under age or not), to sexual assault, to rape all the way up to the worst kind of child rape/abuse. They all go on the register. So just because this incidence isn't as bad in your eyes as someone sharing a video of themselves having sex doesn't mean they shouldn't be on the register. I'm sure that person doesn't think their crime is as bad as a rapists crime but it doesn't mean they should be on the SOR.

donquixotedelamancha · 12/02/2019 06:46

He is the total opposite of a bully by the way
Pulling another child's pants down is not the opposite of bullying. It's bullying.

Do you just mean that the incident has been recorded by the school as a sexual assault on their records? If so, it's good that they are taking it seriously.

I will get more information from my DS tomorrow morning before school.

Why on earth would anyone imagine that playground rumours are an accurate source of info?

BoneyBackJefferson · 12/02/2019 06:54

He is the total opposite of a bully by the way, which is why I sympathised so much with him.

Your perception of him is why he gets away with the bullying.

FuckeryOmbudsman · 12/02/2019 07:12

I suspect that events related by OP are not quite what they seem

The terminology is wrong, and I am wondering what he was hoping to get from this thread

TheOnlyLivingBoyInNewCross · 12/02/2019 07:18

The son of a friend of mine was on the receiving end of a "prank" like the one you describe in your OP. He was mortified. Beyond embarrassed. She really struggled to get him to go back into school the next day.

Pranks like that are not played by lovely boys: they are played by cruel boys who delight in the humiliation of another.

But the sex offenders register thing is bullshit. You don't even mention police involvement, never mind a court case, so what happened - his name was scribbled on the copy hanging around at Police HQ by some random with a pencil?

TheSerenDipitY · 12/02/2019 07:21

good,
maybe his parents are pressing charges, maybe his family lawyer has explained what COULD happen to him
maybe he will think before repeating his actions,
i hope the boy who was humiliated is OK and hasn't suffered any further bullying from this incident
maybe you could quit with the "hes such a good boy" "hes so misunderstood" "he means well" "it was a prank" shit and understand that in the real world pranks are another name for bullying, hes not misunderstood and he didn't mean well, at that time, hes also not high spirited or a nice boy, in that instance he was a bully, plain and simple!
and btw bullys get away with it because of parents with blinkers on saying shit like you have above

AuntieStella · 12/02/2019 07:22

Here's the TL:DR version of this thread

OP: sometimes pulling someone's clothes off is OK
Everyone else: no it isn't

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