To ask if you’ve met an infamous criminal?

[Anon778833]

Did they seem ‘normal’? Or did you get a strange feeling about them?

@Hoppinggreen

Dr Harold Shipman Really nice quiet man with lovely manners. I met him professionally quite a few times and he seemed to really care about his patients, unlike a lot of GPs I dealt with. I am usually pretty good at reading people but he got right past me.

Nobody famous but I also feel like I have a really good sense of reading people. I don't have any real talent at anything but I do tend to be able see through fakes and phoneys and my friends often comment on how I see the 'real' person long before anyone else does.

Therefore, when someone who I worked with was convicted of downloading and viewing the worst category of child pornography it really bothered me. I still think of my own interactions with this person often and literally there wasn't a single thing that bothered me about them. In fact, I really liked them. It's made me feel less confident about people in general.

[quote EmeraldShamrock]@BaronessKareness I'm glad he is honest and regrets the situation.
I'm sure it is an awful dark shadow however he has done his time and moved on.
I believe we're all capable of murder given the wrong circumstances.

I've a cousin who was convicted of manslaughter, it isn't black and white, it was a stupid moment of madness during an altercation. He works hard and keeps his head down these days.[/quote]
I’ve known 2 men like your cousin, one I dated briefly after he got out of prison & the other was a friend of my brother. Both really lovely guys, both have stupid drunken encounters. The guy I dated got into a fight outside a club, there was a couple of groups of lads all about 18/19, one of the other guys died, my ex was the one to throw the fatal punch. He struggled with it but managed to get his life back. He’s happily married now with several children.

My DBs friend threw one punch at a guy who was trying to pick fights with everyone outside a takeaway after a night out, he was also harassing all the girls. When he started on my DBs friend the friend was trying to calm it all down but in the end had enough and punched the guy once. That was all it took. I actually felt sorry for him. He was the type of gentle guy who tried to calm things down. The guy that died was known to be a thug who was always causing trouble and beating up his girlfriends. Thankfully there was cctv and it was plain to see that my DBs friend wasn’t out for trouble.

Peter Sutcliffe in hospital once, he had been attacked by other inmates.

I didn't know it was him originally. I just saw a pair of cold eyes staring at me. So intensely I didn't even notice he waa in cuffs with police escorts at the time.

My DM told me outside who it was.

I've met a lot through my job, it always unnerved me how normal they seem most of the time.

I was part of a youth group in my area for a few years when I was about 10-12 years old, the leader, we didn't realise, was a paedophile. He had been caught before, and managed to get back into community work 😱 - this was the early 1980's but still. He abused a small boy who was probably 12-14 ish, very shy and a bit 'simple' as were his parents, an elderly couple, I suspect they had a lot of faith in him as he was a neighbour of theirs. My brother thought he was a wrong'un so left the group. His best friend outed this guy when he tried to get him to do something. It was awful. The guy lived as a
Community youth worker in a council house which had a door always open policy, on the council estate near us that he was meant to be helping. The poor lad ended up committing suicide - very sad, he didn't have a hope really

A high ranking political leader convicted of horrendous human rights abuses (not in the UK, obviously. Actually maybe not so obvious ). Was charming and personable. Left me musing about the nature of evil .

@DrSeuss

Does Tony Blair count?

Couple of old friends worked for the local newspaper where Levi Bellfield lived. I hope I'm remembering this right - he invited one of them round to his house for a chat when she covered some misdemeanor he did in the paper (pre murdering, that we know of). She said no thanks but obviously spoke to him. The other I'm not sure if she met him but she covered the case in detail and spoke to people closely linked with him.

Family member gave evidence in defence of Harold Shipman in a professional capacity.

Not really a meeting as such, but I saw Fred West once - he was having a loud and lairy conversation with another man, and it drew my attention briefly. I do recall thinking he had a strange ‘vibe’ about him but thought no more of it until his mugshot was all over the news! My late mum was convinced she’d once used the same hairdresser as Rose West and said she just seemed rather insignificant.

He is not infamous yet, but he could well be on your screens fairly soon. It's a long story but I have met the co-founder of a banned neo-Nazi group who is going to trial in November on terrorist offences. Complete weirdo.

Talks like he swallowed the dictionary with no real understanding of the words he is using, uncomfortable level of direct, intense eye contact. Scary.

Classic back story for a far-right nutter - chaotic childhood, non-existent social skills, misfit with a chip on his shoulder about his lack of success at, well, everything really.

Can't say more atm (taps nose and winks!)

Obviously I saw him some years before he was arrested! It was only a random encounter but he had such an odd presence.

In my home town there are 2 women who murdered their father, bastard deserved it. Growing up we all knew who they were, there were about 10 years older than me, their father was an awful monster who beat and raped both girls and their mother. He would take the girls into pubs and refer to them as his girlfriends and do things in public to them. Everyone hated him but no one did a thing. About 20 years ago he was beating the mother, she was on the floor unconscious and the girls attacked him.

I can’t remember if it went to court or not but they definitely never went to prison. The mother died a few years later and they are still around, they live in the same house. They are very quiet and don’t interact with others but you can see a difference in their body language.

@Roussette

I was the Kray's mother's welfare lady. Lovely boys. They gave me some black silk bedding for Christmas. Alleged that they had stolen it from Harrods specially for me, since I helped their dear old mum

I loathe how the Krays are glamorised. Lovely boys???? They were evil ruthless murderers enabled by their 'dear old mum'

Totally agree. If nothing else they were brilliant at building a brand. As an earlier PP said there's no such thing as a gentleman gangster- just violent thugs. They didn't love their mum if they did they wouldn't have allowed other mums to suffer.

@ITSSSSCHRISTMASSS

Thank you, you have summed it up very well.
Although my DPs situation was about 24 years ago, it obviously weighs heavily with him, and he often mentions the young mans family, and the shock of how it all spiralled out of control so quickly.
His honesty was one of the main factors in my continuing the relationship with him - the slightest attempt to minimise or hide the facts, and I would have been gone.

@Cheeserton

What does "on holiday" with Rose West mean? Actually on holiday with her, or what?

It means in prison with her.

I went to Broadmoor on a visit as a psychology student and we were walking round the grounds and there was a man in a smoking jacket / dressing gown type thing with slippers on feeding some birds. He gave me the chills and just had a really awful vibe about him. I was actually scared, and I hadn’t felt that way at all for the rest of the trip. Some of the other students I was with sort of laughed (horrible I know) as he just seemed so strange. The person we were with ushered us past really quickly and said under her breath that she didn’t agree with having students our age visit because we “didn’t appreciate who we were around”.

The man was Peter Sutcliffe.

I worked at a court so met many criminals. The more serious criminals (murder, armed robbery) were always so much polite than the ones in for their first assault.

My Dad used to be a social worker and whilst working at Broadmoor one day had to stop an argument between Peter Sutcliffe and Ronnie Kray. He says they were both polite though and made him a cup of tea after 🤷🏻‍♀️

Not infamous, but I met a girl who was on "Children who kill" on channel 4. Her and a friend had tortured, murdered and mutilated the body of a disabled older woman who they had convinced to buy them alcohol and let them drink it in her house. While in prison she convinced two younger girls to commit suicide. She was very soft spoken, quiet and overly sweet to me, which only increased how uncomfortable I felt around her 😬

At the age of around 10 me and my best friend were huge fans of Gary Glitter. We both entered a competition to meet him and she won. Off we went (with her parents),all giddy with excitement ,until we met him. We could not get away fast enough, the manic look in his eyes will stay with me forever and neither of us listened to his music again. When the horrific details of his crimes came out both me and my childhood friend felt physically sick and relived that we had been with adults that had refused to let us out of their sight that day.

@Jconnais1chansonquivavsenerver

Jimmy Savile, nasty slimy self-satisfied piece of work, though at 20, I was too old for him.

Not true, someone I knew at university went out with him a few times. ☹️

@Hoppinggreen

Dr Harold Shipman Really nice quiet man with lovely manners. I met him professionally quite a few times and he seemed to really care about his patients, unlike a lot of GPs I dealt with. I am usually pretty good at reading people but he got right past me.

God I really want to know why Shipman did what he did. It wasn't money. It wasn't sexual. I know he put himself into some people's will but he was well into his serial killing career by then. Just WHY? What was the reason? The detectives on the case said most of the time once you've caught a serial killer they'll tell you everything but Shipman was an absolute closed book. He took his reasons with him.

I went to the house of a couple who were later convicted and jailed for killing their own daughter.
I knew they had been accused and a friend took me as they had invited them over for dinner whilst I was staying with them.
Friend was very much of the opinion that they hadn't done it.
The mum was clearly not with it, she would jabber on and stutter and seemed so nervous and anxious and like her mind was elsewhere, you'd have to repeat what you said to her at least twice as she seemed to get lost in her own thoughts.
The dad was very harsh with my friends toddler telling her dad that he needed to discipline her from a very young age so she wouldn't get out of hand and shouted at her to sit still and not touch anything!
Neither seemed chilling or anything like that, I felt sorry for the mum actually and the dad seemed a right nob but i couldn't in any way tell if they had been the ones who had killed her or anything like that.

Not infamous but I went to primary school with a boy who grew up to torture and rape women. Currently serving his 3rd (and most likely final) prison sentence. He was quite naughty at school but nothing unusual. Probably could have guessed he'd not grow up to live on the straight and narrow, but never would have imagined all of what he's done.

The cheat from Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and his wife.

Absolute arrogant knob, doesn't surprise me in the slightest that he thought he could cheat.

My DF met Jimmy Saville when I was a child. He made it very clear that I was never to write to Jim’ll Fix It and would turn over / off if he came on the TV. When I was older he said that “that man is a disgusting and should be locked up but he’s untouchable”.