If you suspect someone of inappropriate behaviour towards children but have no proof is there a way you would be able to get police to search their phone/computer and search history?

[tweedie1]

If you have witness someone start to almost "groom" a child is there anything that can possibly be done

In the past I reported them and all that was done was a search to see they had no previous convictions which involved a child. (This to me is ridiculous everyone starts somewhere)

Is action only taken when it's too late? Or is there anything that can be done to get police to look further into it? I fully understand you can't just accuse someone of something but if someone has nothing to hide and isn't doing anything why would searching their belongings be inappropriate

No, you need some actual evidence. Police can't just turn up and have a nose on the off chance unfortunately.

If this person has not committed a crime you cannot report them to police for being weird. But if you have witnessed behaviour that you think is inappropriate report them depending on the situation ( if it was a teacher report your concerns to the school, if it is a a child and family member report to social services).

Of course you can report somebody if you have good reason to suspect them. But its not up to you to decide how the police will investigate or decide if a crime has been committed. Dr Shipman was reported loads of times by different people before his crimes were properly investigated. But hopefully things have improved in the years since then.

Them seeming a bit suspicious to you wouldn’t give the police grounds to do much but there should still be an intelligence report filed and enough of those could mean grounds for a warrant. So yes definitely report but don’t expect results immediately.