I'm so shocked

[iamsoshocked]

I've just found out that someone I used to know is a Paedophile.
He was the dad of a pupil who used to have lessons in our house around 10-13 yrs ago when our kids were around 2 and 5 yrs old. He regularly used to drop off and pick up. He was nice! As was mum, and we became quite friendly with them both, sitting down chatting with a cup of tea after the lesson etc.
He was caught and sent to prison.
I saw mum a few months ago and was asking all about how the boy was doing now he is grown up, but there was no mention of Dad. I had no idea at the time.
I'm just so shocked.

It just goes to show that you can never tell who is who.
And his poor wife and kids. They were just such a nice family.

AIBU to be so shocked?

Because people don't really think this kind of thing happens close to them, being people they knew and trusted.

they don't come with it tattooed on their forehead and in fact, many not all are often just the ordinary people you see every day in Tesco; 's school, etc.
it is always a shock when it comes out that someone has been convicted of any crime

Some people always think that sick men like this are easy to spot, ie the neighbourhood weirdo who looks and acts strangely so no one is surprised to hear he is a peadophile...

While in reality many have outwardly respectable lives and families and have jobs in positions of trust and can seem charming.

It makes sense for them to use that as a cover for their other activities.

I have come across a couple of men who were outwardly successful, charming family men who turned out to abuse women behind closed door.

My family gp went to jail , you would never of known when you saw him he was a family man. You just never know do you

It is always shocking, even when it isn’t surprising because there are so many.

I’ve known 6 personally- to hang out with/had dinner with/closely related to (2 female, 4 male- 2 of whom were teens when they started the abuse and carried on until they went to prison in their 20’s).

Add 2 parents of school friends, 1 vicar from my church and innumerable others through work (SW)…

not to mention the ‘inappropriate but not necessarily paedophilic’ ones- like the school councillor and RE teacher who had an affair with my teenage friend while she was still her pupil/patient, or my teacher who was caught sending sexual messages to a teenage girl, or my IT teacher who had a relationship with a 6th former (and later married her)

and I don’t trust anyone!

I know how you feel. A guy In Our group of friend turned out to be a pedophile. It was shocked. He served his time in jail and he and his parents moved from our childhood area. Nice kind guy. You never have thought it. No contact with him now and no idea where he is. He vanished when he and family left the area. I know he not allowed on social media

In my 14 years in teaching I worked with 5 male teachers who were caught and convicted of child sexual abuse. One was head of year 11, school safeguarding lead and a popular teacher with a wife and baby. He sexually abused a vulnerable girl he was supposed to be supporting. Another one I had shared a classroom with, hung out with in a group, been to his house etc. Sickening. And of course these are just the tiny minority that get caught, convicted and end up in the papers.

It's absolutely normal to be shocked by something like that, OP. I think it would be weird not to be shocked, tbh. And it makes you question your own judgment, too.

I was gobsmacked when a client I'd visited regularly for nearly 6 months was sent to prison for raping two young women. I couldn't believe it, he didn't give off any sort of unpleasant vibe or anything and it really made me question myself.

I worked with a teacher who years later went to prison I went to his wedding

Totally shocked never in a million years did I pick up on any inappropriate behaviour he was the perfect nice family man with a lovely wife who I was good friends with

Never forgot that important life lesson that anyone, how ever nice and normal can be depraved and an abuser given the opportunity and circumstances

I know of 5 locally. 3 teachers and 2 GPs.

I wondered if these careers were targeted specifically.

I never trust men outside my own immediate family.

Yes of course the careers were chosen deliberately.
Don't forget the charity scandals where senior people managed to access vulnerable children in disaster zones.
Closer to home? The NSPCC, Child Line. Scouts, Girl Guides. I personally know of a local vicar and a priest.
I know victims from a couple of prestigious catholic boarding schools.
I remember a documentary some years ago interviewing police who reckoned there was an average of one paedophile every 4 streets. They couldn't arrest them all, there aren't enough prisons to put them.
The ring local to me was based in a primary school.
So many people on MN are dismissive of safeguarding, but we really need it.

My nephew's dad is in prison for abusing his step daughter 😞

An ex boyfriend of mine. First proper ",relationship," I had. I was 18 . Quite naive . A few things freaked me out a bit, calling me frigid because I didn't want sex. Constantly going about it.
Police came round one day. He had been arrested for attempting a sexual assault on a 10 yea old . I was very shocked. He got carted off and did a 2 year sentence in jail. I didn't give what he had done too much head space at the time, I was just glad to get rid of him tbh. It's only in the ensuing years I have really thought about how much damage he probably did to that poor child .

Somebody we know from a group of wider friends we meet at music events has gone to prison for this. We had no idea. He seemed such a normal, ordinary bloke. It is a horrible shock to find out that someone who you think is, 'one of us, just like us' has been doing something so horrific, so alien...and then going smiling about his normal business, shaking our hands and sitting down with us to have a drink. Some of us have agonised over the fact that we feel that we should have known, spotted something was 'off', but really, there was nothing. He was either very brazen, or very practiced at presenting a face to the world.

The thought of him makes my skin crawl and the thought of his young victim is heartbreaking. I hope she will have help and be ok. It's clear the whole group are appalled and feel hurt and some sort of shame by association (not deserved, but all the same there). We had a collection to raise money for a charity helping victims of abuse as a way of trying to make some small good from a rotten situation.

YANBU - I think everyone is shocked when they learn that someone they know is not the person they thought they were. It's just the proximity that makes it feel more shocking.

I think it's a bit like when we feel more affected by a terrible event in our own city/country than we do by a similar event in a place that's unfamiliar. We know it's just as bad wherever it happens, and that the victims are just as important, but it shocks us more simply because it's within our orbit, if that makes sense?

A relative of mine found out a few years after leaving school that one of her former classmates had been jailed for attempting to murder his girlfriend in front of their child. Obviously she is fully aware that such people exist and that they can seem perfectly normal - she's a social worker, so she is probably more aware than most, in fact. But she said she physically came out in a cold sweat and felt sick when she saw the story in the local media, simply because of the proximity/connection.

I saw a TikTok the other day of an American lady talking about the time she worked in a male prison. The boss didn't like her working with the inmates generally but one time was stuck with a lack of staff, so had to put her in the block with all the paedophiles and child killers (as she said they couldn't be included in general population as they wouldn't last long).

She'd been dreading it, but she said they were the nicest, politest and most respectful inmates she'd ever met. She obviously had to keep in her mind that their crimes were abhorrent, but she also made the point that they were so nice that they were just like anyone else you'd meet day to day.

They do, unfortunately, walk among us!

Often the most insidious predators come across as perfectly normal or even delightful people. It is all a part of the guise to appear harmless in order to garner access to what they desire.

My childhood friend's dad got a custodial sentence for paedophilia a few years ago. He was a teacher. It was shocking. The newspapers reported that (he said in court) it was something he had started looking at during his later years, as he "searched for things that were more and more taboo". I have no idea whether there is any truth to this claim, but the quote has stuck with me. I think about it often as I was close to this man - he never laid a finger on me.

A teacher at my school was caught during my A-levels, he wasn't my teacher but was my friends and it really messed up their studies. His school computer as well as his home one were taken as evidence.

I guess I’m more shocked that I was friendly with him am invited him into our home.
I have met another person who was dodgy but not prosecuted, (another teacher) but I wasn’t friends with him. Mainly cos I thought he was a bit odd.
I think coming on here to write it down is part of my process of coming to terms with it.

I think the point is that paedophiles are MORE likely to be nice, helpful, charming than normal people.

They want access to people’s families so need to be unthreatening and a ‘good bloke’

2, both friends from a group - the first one made national headlines for luring a young teen into toilets in a department store and raping him. About a year later, another one got caught having the worst category of child abuse images on his home computer. He even featured on Crimewatch...Both served long prison sentences, and I've never seen either of them in my city again (thank fuck).

I was more shocked at the second one, we'd been really close at one point ... he was actually on police bail for about a year waiting for the court case (he pled guilty). Didn't breathe a word of it to the group, but did ask me a lot about sentencing for his type of crime (he knew I had a legal background). Obviously when the first person got caught and sentenced there had been a lot of talk in the group about it all, so his questions didn't seem that unusual.

I work with these men daily... have normal conversations

You would never know if you met them B on the outside

I worked for the NHS for 10 years, and never came across a paedophile or a victim. This thread is verging on mass hysteria.

@peakygold how do you know you didn't?