To be horrified by this Metro article about standing by an offender (content warning, read with care)

[blackcatclub]

I opened this article thinking it would be about her leaving him: metro.co.uk/2021/11/28/i-was-8-months-pregnant-when-my-partner-was-arrested-for-child-sex-offences-15662442/

But no.

As a survivor of abuse I am absolutely appalled that they published this as if it was ok and the woman was not in fact deluded and minimising everything.

Metro aren't excusing the woman or the man. It's first person. We're all capable of making up our minds about this without being led by the nose.

It looks like Metro have bought it from a news agency and have published it without a follow-up interview. They shouldn't have done that because it has loads of holes and is frustrating - particularly in the timeline but also why she believes him, what the reaction of family is and what happened to the baby because I'm sure she has been born by now.

In my experience social services and police would apply for a court order to force him to live separately and would either ban access or more probably allow only strictly supervised access. If that was broken the child would be taken into care. The child may have even been taken into care at birth and that's the reason for the fudginess.

It doesn't surprise me that it hasn't got to court. These things take time and charges might even be dropped. If they are the child protection order would still be in place.

It's not entrapment for the police to do this. They always make it clear that the child is underage and never ask leading questions but let the man do all the talking. The need for clear evidence of a crime is the reason why charges are sometimes dropped.

I don't particularly approve of amateur paedophile hunters but some of them are disciplined at not contaminating evidence and some police forces will accept it.

I don't think it's made up. People do the strangest things. The point of interviewing them is to try to get them to explain why and also to inform others that there might be people like this about. Metro hasn't done anything wrong but it's a shame they didn't do a better job. The writer probably didn't have time and wasn't experienced in this kind of story. Women's real life magazines are much better at it.

I certainly don't think it shouldn't be published.

@Ritasueandbobtoo9

Devils advocate:

It wasn’t a 12 year old girl it was a police officer.

I think police and paedophile hunters should stop doing this and concentrate on people who are actually abusing real children rather than psychologically manipulating people into committing a crime.

Discuss:-

There’s nothing to discuss, it’s irrelevant that it was an adult police sting, all that matters is that he thought it was a child. End of.

Absolutely disgusting and I hope you’re not feeling sorry for him because that’s absolutely sick!!

I think she's very deeply in denial

She is just refusing to let herself really believe what it means that he was grooming someibe he believed to be a 12 year old girl online. It's too awful to get your mind round immediately. She appears to think it can be kept quiet, but a conviction isn't a private matter - he could be sacked, plus will be barred from being alone round children in voluntary roles (well, technically risk assessed and perhaps permitted in some, but most organisations will give a flat 'no' to a person with a conviction of thus nature). Depending on his sector, it is enormously career limiting and at least some people in the workplace will come to know. Unless he just keeps moving on.

I think that she is simply not letting herself believe what this really means, and that he is not the good man she thought he was. She's making excuses - thrill-seekers still have standards behind which you just don't go, and he has busted right through that.

It's horrific, and must be worse when you are pregnant, so I do have some sympathy for her finding it hard. But most of all I want to give her a shake, and tell her that her old life is gone and no matter how hard it is, she needs to face up to it. SS will be involved with her family, and if they believe she is making excuses for him, or minimising in any other way, then she faces considerably greater difficulty

I was really shocked by it too. To me it read a bit like the writer was making excuses for him or trying to minimise what he did. He intentionally sent explicit photos to someone he thought was a 12 year old girl, it doesn't matter if it was actually an undercover cop or a real child he still did it. He's a danger to children. Revolting.

Alex, who had always been my protector, was now deemed an animal

A child sex offender is no better than an animal being led by his base instincts. I was shocked by this article, the woman is living in cloud cuckoo land, in complete denial about what he has done. And no matter how hard she tries the relationship and her life will never be 'normal' they will always have this hanging over them, especially as her family and close friends know. Will he ever be allowed to do stuff like the school run/taking the child to birthday parties etc? I hope he gets the maximum sentence possible to jolt her out of her denial.

@Ritasueandbobtoo9

Devils advocate:

It wasn’t a 12 year old girl it was a police officer.

I think police and paedophile hunters should stop doing this and concentrate on people who are actually abusing real children rather than psychologically manipulating people into committing a crime.

Discuss:-

Discuss:- er this is a discussion forum, you dont need to say that!

Devils advocate:
It wasn’t a 12 year old girl it was a police officer.
I think police and paedophile hunters should stop doing this and concentrate on people who are actually abusing real children rather than psychologically manipulating people into committing a crime.
WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU SAYING HERE???

That the poor wee defenceless man was a victim here????

It's all just so wrong, isn't?

He was obviously on some sort of fishing expedition to be messaging someone else in the first place so that is basic cheating right there!
When he then finds out its a 12 year old girl he is messaging, he doesn't stop or have that wtf am I doing moment. Instead he carries on messaging a 12 year old child to the extent that he what, sends dick pics thinking that's a good idea??

Just no, no, no!!! I would never ever have this man in my life again let alone my child's. Stupid woman!!

It’s well documented that family and friends do often support abusers - often by excluding and vilifying their victims. There’s some sort of awful cognitive dissonance that goes in where they find it easier to reject the victim and their account than to recognise that this person they loved/liked or admired is capable of these things. Or that they could get their character judgements so wrong. It also feeds into all sorts of assumptions that are common in society - children (and women) are not reliable unlike men, bullshit Lolita myths about predatory little girls, and so on.

The details here make that even easier to happen. It wasn’t a ‘real child’ but a nasty police officer trying to trick the poor man. 🙄

Abusers are very often good at manipulating people in this way too.

Tbh, I think responsible reporting of this kind of account would include information from experts about this aspect of it, rather than presenting a first person account at face value.

It wasn’t a 12 year old girl it was a police officer. Well that was more by fucking luck than design, wasn’t it?! He thought he was talking to a child. He did and said the things he did, thinking it was a child. The crime is there. It’s irrelevant that the victim wasn’t who he’d intended it to be.

I think police and paedophile hunters should stop doing this and concentrate on people who are actually abusing real children rather than psychologically manipulating people into committing a crime Do you think that this is the first time he’ll have ever done it? Or that he never would have done it again after the first time? Or do those victims not count? Are they not victimised enough for you? And if it had been a child, do you think that would have been enough for him? That he always would have stopped at photographs and on line contact? How the fuck do you think these paedophile hunters get their footage? They get it because these fucking monsters are getting into their cars and going to meet people whom they believe are children, with the intention of sexually abusing them. These ARE people who are actually abusing real children.

And ‘psychologically manipulating’? Are you fucking serious? How does any normal adult man get psychologically manipulated into sending photographs of their genitalia to a child? It doesn’t matter if it’s a police officer or Sigmund Freud they’re talking to. If you’re not a paedophile, you won’t have any interest in talking to children on line and there is no way in a million years that you could be manipulated into sending them photographs of your genitals. Dave from Grimsby isn’t going to be able to manipulate you into doing anything that you weren’t happy to do anyway.

Those who think he's been tricked or manipulated into doing this, he hasn't. There are very strict rules in place regarding entrapment, the police officer wouldn't have even been able to request a nude from him for example, it would have all had to have come from him. The rules are precisely so no one can use the defence that they were in any way manipulated or coerced into their actions.

Giving her the benefit of the doubt she's in a vulnerable place, hormones etc
Hopefully she will snap out of it soon

@TarasCrazyTiara

What do you expect it’s typical click bait bullshit designed to rile women up so they keep checking Metro. The couple may not even exist.

You'd like to think that it was made up, wouldn't you? Sadly, as a poster above (who deals with these cases) said, it's far from uncommon. So even if this is a work of fiction, it is happening somewhere.

Weird people about; remember the wives of those men who were targeting girls at those childrens homes in north of England. After the men had been sent to prison wives spoke to a journalist blaming the 13yr old children for leading the men on.

Is it the drumbeat towards normalising paedophilia?

@jamie85

Weird people about; remember the wives of those men who were targeting girls at those childrens homes in north of England. After the men had been sent to prison wives spoke to a journalist blaming the 13yr old children for leading the men on.

I read Lolita in book club, and the people there, men and women, were commenting about how Lolita had seduced him. I had to point out to them that (a) you are reading a paedophile's account so its not to be trusted (b) she is a CHILD. Its his responsibility as an ADULT to reject any childish apparent expressions of emerging sexuality.

Lolita was also not seen as a 'real' victim as she did not spend all her time weeping and crying and begging.

I've seen similar comments on a thread on here about Lolita.

It really, really disturbs me how rapidly people allow their boundaries around adults not having sex with children to be eroded. And their simplistic narratives about how victims should behave, or else they are not 'real' victims.

@Valeriekat

Is it the drumbeat towards normalising paedophilia?

No

@blusteredbirds I'm just hearing this on the radio news - news.sky.com/story/ghislaine-maxwell-trial-who-are-the-alleged-victims-and-what-are-the-charges-12480995

Which is linked to a member of the British Royal family who is currently in hiding.

Granted the girls were slightly older but they were still children.

@Valeriekat

Is it the drumbeat towards normalising paedophilia?

No.

It is to help explain why family members particularly female partners stick with sex abusers.

My abusers (primary school teacher) wife has stuck by him (and gone on to have DC with him, including girls). There were two of us who had said he committed sexual assaults against us as children. And I know for a fact there is a third victim he attempt raped (my aunt) who sold me down the river and did not disclose this to the police, to save her marriage. All my Mum's family still socialise and accept him as part of the family, even though he is not their blood relative. I was painted as a 'trouble causer, liar and unreliable' because I tried to commit suicide (in one of their houses) and had MH issues and substance abuse issues as a teenager. Well of course I did, he abused me!

I bumped into a cousin on a train who angrily said that I am just upset because X 'tried to get off with you'. He abused me from the age of 5 onwards. The police completely screwed up evidence gathering so the CPS didn't charge. Even though my abuser did not deny or admit it, he just said he couldn't remember. So it is absolutely realistic that people stick by perpetrators. I have the sickening feeling that one day more things will come to light, probably around young children in the family now. Whilst it will give me vindication and validation it will give me no pleasure at all because more children will have had to experience CSA. If anyone sticks by the perpetrator or chooses to bury their head in the sand they are as culpable in my eyes as they only perpetuate the shame and secrecy that is so damaging in CSA.

@safemove

I am so sorry that you have been treated so cruelly by the people who should have rallied around and protected you. I agree with you that they share culpability

I think police and paedophile hunters should stop doing this and concentrate on people who are actually abusing real children rather than psychologically manipulating people into committing a crime

Isn’t it better to prevent a child from sexual abuse by putting the abusers away before they commit a crime with a real child?

I think it's very easy to judge and to state "Well I would have left my partner/spouse immediately", as long as you haven't been on that situation. Things are often different when it's your own life.

Additionally, someone misbehaving sexually doesn't mean they're a danger to their own children. Is a 50 year old man who likes a 20 year old, also attracted to his own 20 year old daughter?

Another apologist.

@swissmodel

I think it's very easy to judge and to state "Well I would have left my partner/spouse immediately", as long as you haven't been on that situation. Things are often different when it's your own life.

Additionally, someone misbehaving sexually doesn't mean they're a danger to their own children. Is a 50 year old man who likes a 20 year old, also attracted to his own 20 year old daughter?

He sent a nude picture to someone that he thought was 12, for crying out loud!

Oh for Christ's sake - he sexually messaged someone he believed to be a 12 year old child.

"It's easy to say you'd leave"
Yes - it is fucking easy! Any sort of mother would leave the second they found out he was a danger to children, and that social services didn't trust him around his own child. That isn't something which is said lightly.

Some of the apologist replies on this thread are absolutely batshit. That woman's child should be removed the second she's born. The mother has been warned that SS will not allow him to be around the baby without supervision. If she's willing to choose him, after he's shown what he's capable of, over her own baby - she doesn't deserve the baby in the first place.