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?

Literally did not say that

Copy where I said it because you can't because I didn't.

Everyone here can read

Though comprehension skills vary.

Oh I get that indeed. I'm very surprised how matter of fact you talk about this. You cannot keep your kids away from strangers forever. It only works with very young ones. What do you not get about this?

I stand by my response that not all of the downplaying replies here come from Mums.

The man is a huge risk. The man has the tools to be taking photos of their little faces in the garden and putting them in an app that gives him exactly what images he wants.

The man is a danger, anyone who downplays the danger, is a danger.

How on earth does that imply legitimacy?

@ThisNeatRedMember Because you asked. Yes I can read. I'm expecting all sorts of Uturns 'ah this is not what I said or meant'. You said it.

I does read like you are literally excluding the slim chance that this man might begin to befriend kids as they walk to the corner shop to buy some sweets or on their way home from school. It does very much read like 'he's only got thoughts and is never with the DC and therefore nothing will happen'.

Yeah that's a classic. If backed into a corner some people will just bring up 'comprehension skills' and try to insult another poster that way. Try harder.

I agree with all that. Taking photos in positions any sane adults would think are innocent land on the internet for other PDF to get off on. That is ABUSE.

Our neighbour was sent to prison for downloaded /altered images of children. We never knew until about 2 weeks prior to the court case when he told us - he'd been told to 'confess' (by his solicitor I think) to friends/neighbours as this 'honesty' would count towards leniency. He didn't confess to the full extent of his crimes, and very much played down what he'd done.

Our DC were never in this blokes company either with us or without. But they very easily could have been.

He was working in hospitality and the owners did initially keep him on, until his crimes came to light more widely when they had no choice but to get rid of him or loose their business. They were misguided.

This was just pre Sarah's Law so as I was concerned that we'd not been informed and had young DC I phoned the detective in charge of the case and was told they'd not told us because they'd risk assessed the individual and he was not a risk to our DC (!). I understand his interest was in older children

He got 3 1/2 years.

Just prior to his release I advocated with the probation service on behalf of his DM as she didn't want him returning to the family home. She was elderly and vulnerable. He went to a town 20 miles away.

I also seem to remember getting details of his release - ie what he could do/couldn't do and where he could go etc from I think the Court Service just to make sure that I knew what to expect if he turned up.

His family disowned him and his mother went from being a pillar of the local community with a load of friends and interests to being something of a recluse and ultimately died of a broken heart.

He quickly ended up back in prison for the same/similar crime.

I think he'd got caught as a result of that (at the time) massive Canadian case where they were able to retrieve loads of credit card details and track down perps that way.

You would never have guessed what he did in a million years and had a wide and varied friendship group, and was gregarious and personable.

You really just can't tell and that's why children should be safeguarded.

How does that work?

Can somebody take innocent pictures of my (now adult) kids and convert them to child abuse porn?

And yes I do know about fake stuff with heads projected to bodies.

This is just online hysteria.

If you can absorb anything from this thread, it's that CSAM are so hideously prevalent on the Internet that anyone who wants to view real DC being abused can do so and there are millions of images online

More than any individual could consume.

They don't need to take pictures of a child in a garden and create AI.

And even if what you claim is true, that he has the tools then that applies to everyone who can see DC in real life who has a smartphone and potentially create images of them.

So how would you prevent that in real life?

Stop your DC from going outside ever?

Put a veil over their face like Michael Jackson?

It's not downplaying danger it's saying the danger of someone taking a picture of anyone anywhere and doing something with it exists everywhere so what's your solution?

No.

Show me where I said it.

It's not hard.

I don't want to get too graphic. Your child may play out in the garden fully clothed but spead their legs or bend over. That is enough for any PDF to feel aroused. I don't want to scaremonger. It's just what happens unfortunately. Let's not even talk about summer season and swimsuits etc.

Actually you don’t know that he has access to anything of the sort.

“Making” child abuse images doesn’t mean someone is sitting at their computer putting pictures of children into whatever software exists for the purpose,

Receiving a child abuse image constitutes “making child abuse images.”

Hugh Edward’s was convicted of making child abuse images because he was sent them by someone else.

There was a case of a police officer who was sent an image by a friend who had been sent it, and she was charged with making child abuse images.

That doesn’t make the crime any less despicable, and doesn’t make the viewer of said images any less of an awful human being.

But it’s simply not true to say that if there is a paedophile who has been convicted of making child abuse images he is actually instrumental in producing them. He may simply be downloading them from whatever sector of the dark web these people use, and that means the same.

So in that regard he may not actually be a danger to the children he is living in close proximity to.

And if we’re going to take the view that someone can take a picture of a child and upload it into generative software, then we need to take the view that children should not be allowed out in public ever, because to do so puts them in danger every time they’re captured on camera, on CCTV, on someone’s insta pictures as they walk by, etc. And that’s simply not the case.

The problem is that saying all that makes it sound like downplaying this man’s crimes which I’m not, but it’s also important to be rational.

Nobody said he is no risk - how can we know? The advice is, essentially, to keep the kids away from him but not to move or try to force him out. Secondly, to think about how we educate our kids about the dangers of predatory men.

Look, this isn't academic for me any more than it is for you or the OP. I've already mentioned how a loved family member got done for this crime and how shocking it was for me, as I completely trusted him and used to go with him for days out with my kids.

But also, I'm a child of the 70s and was very much raised on the idea that you could spot a predator because they all wore dirty raincoats, said "come here, little girl", and had pockets full of sweeties and kittens. That education really failed me. I was 4 the first time a man stuck his hand up my skirt and into my pants. I was holding my mum's hand on the escalator FGS, and she didn't notice. I whipped my hand round and he smiled at me. Bad men don't smile, do they? So I just stared ahead and pretended it wasn't happening.

A few years later, a friend of my mum's engaged me in a conversation about what kind of Page 3 images turned me on? I was making a cup of tea while my mum finished her phone call upstairs. I just froze, so ingrained it was in me to think that (a) family friends couldn't be bad people and (b) I had to be polite to grown-ups.

Anyway, the point is that with my own teenage daughters I've tried to educate them to spot predatory behaviours rather than predatory people, that it isn't rude to protect themselves from anything that makes them feel uncomfortable, and that they dont owe it to people to justify their 'no'.

So, that's me trying to be helpful. Nobody wants a predatory man next door, and nobody on this thread has said it's a non-issue. It's ridiculous to imply some of us are covert pedos because you don't like or don't understand what we are saying.

I did? it's not hard to see?

I worked in this sector once and it opened my eyes to the numbers of convicted child abusers who are on licence and supported in the community. It included two people I regularly met with through church and school. So basically - they are everywhere, and these are just the ones that have been caught. I'd do nothing at all, because this is the tip of the iceberg.

I'd plant something that grows tall and quick between our gardens if nothing else.

I saw something like that in the moray council news if that’s what you’re talking about and someone’s gone and vandalised his car and made a Facebook petition to drive him out

Where did I say this man posed no risk to DC?

I didn't say it so you can't

@ThisNeatRedMember for the 2nd time in case you are indeed not trolling me. Also for @Ketzele

Here also in bold for you:

OP isn't worried about this man posing a risk to her DC because he's never with her DC.
She's posting about how sickened she is that she used to talk to him and she doesn't want him near her or her DC
Because of the nature of his crimes, not because she thinks he's a risk to her DC other than looking at them.
So he's no risk to them. Other than possibly having thoughts. And there's no way to protect anyone from anyone else having thoughts about them.

Years ago there was a poster on MN who ran a child modelling website. Back then there was a child modelling section of the forum, not sure if it’s still there, haven’t looked for years.) but she basically befriended parents there and encouraged them to put pictures up of their kids both on there as well as on her child modelling website. Turns out these images were being used by a paedophile ring of some sort.

Just keep your kids away. I used to work in Child protection. That's all you should do.

OK, if some scumbag can get off on seeing my fully clothed 5 year old daughter bending down, or even doing headstands in a frock and showing her knickers, so be it.

As long as it goes no further.

I'm of the generation that was a child during the Moors murders and got blood curdling warnings at school about what was later called stranger danger.

Life's too short to worry about some stuff.

Child modelling is a different thing to innocent pictures in my garden or on holiday in the nineties/noughties.

There are pictures, albeit not on the internet, of mine in the bath with their cousins.

Would I take pictures of my grandchildren in the bath?

No, becuase the world has moved on.