My neighbour is a convicted paedophile

[Obviouslyneedtonamechange]

I've just found out from another neighbour that the man two doors down, who we chat to regularly and are friendly with, has been convicted of horrific child pornography charges. Like, the worst. It's really thrown me, I have a two year old and a four year old and I want them to be able to play in their garden without worrying about him watching or worse.
We live on a really small street which the name of was reported in the local paper so I am also a bit worried about potential vigilante type actions. I am obviously hoping he moves away (his marriage has collapsed so I'm hoping he financially has to) but no sign of that yet. Incredibly he got a suspended sentence, what a joke. Am I unreasonable to feel like I want to move?! What do I do?

Yes, you are saying it how it is. And exposure to the paedo neighbour like OP had originally, means the neighbour gets a chance to become enamoured / drawn to the particular child. The child gets under their skin just like you or I might get a crush on Dan from accounts. Then the tempations creep in and the stuff us hysterical women are scared of (photos, watching, grooming) starts happening.
I bet you all 5k that there are paedos interacting on this thread right now.

What he needs is chemical castration not a suspended fucking sentence.

If your back fence isn’t 6ft maybe raise it?
You won’t see him & he won’t be able to see into your garden, it will make you feel better.

The Catholic priest who took my son for confirmation classes is currently in prison on child abuse convictions.. I was horrified. My DS said he was never interested in him, he preferred to lavish attention on the very young children. Disgusting beast. If Id known!!!!!

Because there's a difference between a contact offence and non-contact, this guy is "no risk to them"? The fact is that while some who view CSAM do not commit in-person crimes, almost invariably those who commit contact crimes have a habit of viewing CSAM. So this man is entirely plausibly a contact offender or keen to be one. There is no clear distinction, so no reason why OP shouldn't avoid this guy like the plague and tell him to stay away from her kids.

It is not correct to say that a man who has CSAM poses no risk to children; it's reckless and very strange.

Appreciate what you’re saying. These bastards are walking, breathing problems for society and as long as they’re living, they’ll cause issue for someone, somewhere.

However, other communities aren’t the OPs problem. Her responsibility lies to her children.

This type of offender’s life deserves to be miserable. They’ll never get an ounce of grace or goodwill from me.

I also don’t think it’s fair to say that their life being miserable makes them more likely to offend. So we need to be tolerant of them, or they’ll do bad things? They’ll do it anyway because they’re deviants.

Right...

So again this is a problem with your comprehension isn't it?

You said originally that the OP was posting about wanting to protect her DC.

And I said OP wasn't posting about that at all since she never said she was worried about her DC as neighbour was never with them she said she just didn't want him to be near her or her DC now she knew of his crimes.

So I said, as OP had said, her DC weren't at risk from this neighbour since he was never in any situation where he could abuse them unless OP was just worried about him having thoughts about them which are impossible to prevent or Police.

Then you either can't read or just are terrible at comprehension and said that I'd said this man posed 'no risk to children'. At all

I think it's your comprehension hun since you posted exactly what I said but seemed to think you'd caught me out in something I hadn't said and you just posted my words to prove it.

I take what you say... BUT the research supports this...

Yes there were always be levels of recidivism... BUT we need to make it as low as possible!

Fair enough if research supports what you’re saying.

I personally couldn’t accept a known paedophiles presence like this, whether research showed that it helped reduce reoffending or not. I do have very quite strong opinions on what should happen to them, and it’s certainly not letting them back into society with the expectation that a community tolerates their presence.

As I mentioned on the first page of this thread, I do accept that plenty of people don’t agree with me. 🙂

At no point did I or anyone else say OP shouldn't avoid the man like the plague.

The arguments coming in were from people saying he was a risk to her DC which he is not unless OP is letting him have access to her 2 and 4 year old.

Which she is not nor was she likely to be.

The OPs DC and your DC won't be abused by the random neighbour down the street who don't have contact with them.

They'll be abused by people who you trust to have unsupervised contact with them.

It's very simple.

Sentences are too light I agree. But they are not lighter than most other countries in Europe. British people have a tendency to believe that our justice system is liberal generally, and it's not at all. I don't know where this idea comes from. Our prison population is very high in comparison to similar countries.

So he moves out and another nasty pervert moves in. Then what? You going to hound that one out as well. And the other perverts that on the next street and the local shop and so on. They are everywhere teach your children to be safe and not to trust strangers.

Not if the parent doesn't allow them around the DC.

OPs DC are 2 and 4. She's just been friendly in the street to the neighbour up to now, no suggestion she was inviting him in to spend time with her DC.

At that point he wouldn’t be the stranger neighbour up the road, he'd be someone OP was inviting into her DCs lives.

Which is why I and other people who aren't hysterical on this thread are saying you don't need to worry about the possible paedo up the street who your kids never come into contact with, you need to worry about the people you are trusting with your DC.

Stranger CSA is vanishingly rare in the same way that 85% of women over the age of 16 are rapes by someone they know and usually trust, more than 50% being a partner or ex-partner.

So a convicted rapist in your street is much less likely to rape you then someone you know and trust.

That's not minimising sexual assault or CSA it's factual and people pointing out that women need to be aware of it instead of getting in an outrage about local convictions are in fact, trying to educate people to the real risks posed by people they know and not the paedo down the road.

I think this is very true.
Now that we have the Internet anyone can watch anything, and they do.
I think men who do this are similar to people who watch extremely violent films, most will not go on to commit violence themselves. They see a distinction between looking at something online, and doing it in reality. However. there are a few who might, so safest to steer clear.
As for this individual, he has done wrong and his life has been destroyed, keep away from him but let him be.

Be aware that mob “justice”, ie. hounding people out of communities can go very badly wrong. As someone said, it can happen if somebody has a similar name to a paedophile. Mistaken identity happens all the time. Paediatricians have been attacked by people who can’t spell “paedophile”. Remember also the movement “letzgohunting”, in which people posed as teenagers in chat rooms, to act as honey traps? This caused more problems that it solved, as evidence was inadmissible, and jeopardised other cases.

Mumsnet always says “move house” to solve any problem. Doing so is opening the mystery box. As others have said, perverts are all around us, including ones nobody knows about.

The number of apologists on this thread is staggering. 🙄

Indeed, it's sickening to read.

Can you quote them?

Just have a read through. Plenty of “let them be”, “they need to go somewhere”, “some of them don’t touch kids, they just look at images”, “just watch your children” type stuff.

Don’t have time just now to sift through, there’s plenty there though.

It's fact that DC are more at risk from the people intimately around them who are very likely not consuming CSAM and not paedophiles (there is a clinical definition) but are opportunistic contact offenders then some bloke down the road who has been convicted of possession of CSAM.

You are wilfully distorting the facts. Yes, children are more at risk from a male family member than from a stranger - bu that statistic absolutely goes out the window when you add 'who has been convicted of looking at images of CSA' to 'stranger'.

I'd also like to see your data on family CSA offenders with a history of viewing images of CSA, versus those without a history. I've never come across any such research.

Sorry, I don't think it legitimises it. 'Child pornography' is not two words that ever should be together.

Me also , although 10+ years ago . It turned be very paranoid about it , I even became extra hyper aware around men in my family / friendship network .

This is such a strange thing to say. Do you understand what 'an apologist' means?

He is at a low risk of having contact with op's kids as they are never in his care. There's a very low probablity he'd have the opportunity. Most offences happen when there's some time of relationship, often one of trust.

Op has to do what's best for herself. Moving is obviously expensive and causes upheaval, but if the stress is too much it may be worth it for her.

Years ago I was given a list of child sex offenders in my press days (no idea who leaked the info) and was sent to follow up on some of them, ugh. There are so very many and many zoned in and living around schools, children's clubs - scouts, guides, ATC etc. One I saw come out of his house, lean against his low garden wall and just watch the children playing in their lunch break, as he lived opposite a school. It made me so aware of where to live. I will never understand why anything so revolting, wrong and nasty can be so prevalent in society.

Sorry OP. If you can, move. Yes, you won't know who is what in a new place but now you know for sure you have one as a neighbour.