To wonder why people don’t use the safety tools available when blending a family?

[lunar1]

I just can’t understand in this day and age why anyone would bring an unrelated adult into their children’s home without doing clairs/sarah’s law checks?

none of us think someone we love could harm us or our children, but it happens on a daily basis. Isn’t it just due diligence these days? No they won’t catch everyone, but they will catch some.

its a shame it’s not compulsory before bringing a random adult into children’s home.

By getting checks you are seeking to reduce risk. That is all.

No it doesn't provide a 100% foolproof way of knowing whether someone is a risk, but in some cases it can provide valuable information. Worth doing and not just depending on how 'nice' someone appears to be or one's instincts. Sexual predators can be skilled (and some trade tips with each other online about how to groom SP to get to the kids)

And anyone who then sees a clear report and assumes that means they can completely let all the guard rails down and sees it as an automatic green light to allow a man to move in, does indeed, lack critical thinking. But then some SP do, that is the point.

I cannot see why a person would not seek to do a check if they have young children.

Some are. My mum was. That's how I got abused at 7 years old. Please don't deny that these things happen - there sadly are a lot of crap parents around, desperate for love/shagging/someone to live with, at their kids' expense.

Apologies - I’m not denying these things happen, of course they do.
I was trying to point out that the initial post where the OP said single parents move “random” men in is a bit of a sweeping statement towards single parents.
Abuse can happen within families by parents, siblings, aunts, uncles etc but the post was aimed just at single parents and I was pointing this out.

I can’t believe people bring an unrelated adult into their children’s homes at all tbh.

You can't get these checks done for the sake of it though.

You have to have a reasonable suspicion.

If you have a reason to suspect then having this check done could falsely reassure you.

Haven’t read the full thread but to those that think if they are going to be a risk they’ll be a walking red flag…. They aren’t. They are often pleasant and charming and when they are caught it breeds comments of “he was such a lovely guy, I can’t believe he would do that”.

I was with my ex for 10 years…. Only lived together for 2 (Covid)…. Turned out he had been a paedo pretty much the whole time… there weren’t checks back then and even if there had been he hadn’t been caught so nothing would have flagged. He presented as an all round good guy, raised money for charity, helped his friends out when they needed it, looked after his elderly uncle. IF I was going to see someone again I’d check them out. Realistically though I won’t have another relationship. I don’t trust others and, more importantly, I don’t trust myself to judge them accurately (even though my therapist has told me that you can’t tell who these people are because they are master manipulators). I’m assuming these checks can be carried out on people of either sex and, again IF, I was going to have a relationship I would encourage said partner to carry out the check on me. It should be standard. Like getting a clean bill of sexual health.

on that logic, why not mothers before the leave the hospital after delivery?

Many midwives have ended up reporting mothers to social services during routine pregnancy check ups, it's not unheard of

My husband and I are both health care professionals, and he was also on a highly skilled migrant visa when I met him-definitely rules out any criminal activity that he’d been caught for!

honestly the poster who had been with her partner for 7 years, I very much doubt that a predatory man preying on single mothers would hang around for that length of time.

My step mother’s behaviour to my brother and I would definitely have counted as criminal; even in the 80’s/90’s this wouldn’t have flagged her; but then my dad was there for the punishments, so nobody was saving us from that.

we have women in here living with practical strangers in under a year, I just think if there’s a possibility of these checks helping; they should be used, even though it won’t catch them all.

Well people dont always use their brains when having the first child so they wouldnt when they blend after that

I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with these checks, far from it. Probably more people should take advantage of them.

But if you meet someone and, early in the relationship, feel the need to do a Clare’s Law check there are probably some other alarms bells going off which you should be listening to.

Nor will a clean Clare’s Law check give you a complete clean bill of health if someone. It just establishes that they don’t meet the most serious security risks for you and your family.

Far safer just to take things really slowly, meet the friends and family of the new partner and see how things evolve.

You have to have suspicions to do these checks though don’t you? I have a vague recollection of this being discussed at a group I attended via woman’s aid. Someone said they had tried clairs law for a new boyfriend and the police refused to do it without her having experienced behaviour from him to justify it- the lead of the group said yes that’s the case.

so essentially you can’t do it without cause and so if you are doing it you would have reached the point you should end it anyway!

I do know family can do it. So if you have concerns about a man moving into a relatives home you can do the check and the police won’t disclose to you but if something comes up they will contact the woman directly and disclose to her. So they have value there.

I hope women are not persuaded a man that feels off is safe just because noting came up in his check.

People should also be aware you have to have the correct name and date of birth for these checks to even find the person you want checked. It’s a known phenomenon where abusive men give the wrong year of birth to their partners.

pedophiles also known to change their name for this reason.

obviously the checks have some value but they have massive flaws.

Somebody who actually realises this

you cannot just ask for a disclosure, it is not the case, nobody seems to want to take that on board

Just as before I had children, there would be no screen time until they were two, absolutely no junk food and only breast milk for the first six months but the reality has been somewhat different, it would also be different if I was actually a single parent. It’s very easy to say you wouldn’t dream of bringing a man into your child’s life from the comfortable standpoint of a two parent family.

I’m also a social worker and have seen this so often .