My neighbour and Sarah's Law

[Heyhellohihi]

Hi all.

I have a few concerns about my neighbour. At first he seemed a perfectly normal neighbour. We are housing association.

Then one day when myself and my DD were going inside to my flat, he said "don't worry I'm just a big friendly giant, I'm not scary at all, you can trust me." to my daughter. She's 10yo. I thought he was just being friendly. But it lingered in the back of my head.

However after 3 years of living next door to me, he had now learned my routine, watched out his window. Came out his front door when I had visitors. His front door is opposite mine. He was constantly coming out with every visitor. Questioned what I am doing. Messaging me on Facebook (we are part of a residents group). And sending me another message if I didn't respond after an hour. Asking me "who that gent is" when I had my brother over. It felt like a controlling relationship. However we had never met up apart from bumping into each other in the block. We've never flirted. Never been inside eithers flats. It got daily.

I went to my housing association. The guy who manages the block advised me to go to the police. I did. The officer on the phone said I could do a Sarah's Law as I have a daughter. I applied for one.

Another officer called me back a week later and told me that he can see the history of this guy and he's done it to someone else previously. They didn't specify who and to block him on everything. I did. And to report him if he does anything. He was also spoken to. The officer then told me because he's a neighbour I cannot do a Sarah's law on him. However I have read online I can. How true is this please?

I dread it when my daughter goes to secondary school. As she will be coming home herself. I know it's easy to say make sure I'm home but I want her to become independent.

I cannot move. I am housing association. I've tried home swappers but we want to stay in this town. Most weekends I stay at my mums because of him.

Wow - that website is really eye-opening. I recommend everyone looks at it and sees what is going on in their area, particularly anyone who is female or who has children.

What is the website ? My dc are older now but I had concerns about a local man when they were little.

sex offenders database uk

Well, I applied for a Sarah’s Law disclosure on a family member (step grandfather) because I was told by someone he had a history of child sex offences. While he didn’t necessarily have unsupervised contact with my dc (like we’d never leave him in sole charge of them), he certainly was around them when we visited for lunch or attended family events he would be at. He certainly had contact with them.

The police officer who called said as I’d be warned by someone else to avoid him because of a history of child sex offences, then I just needed to assume that was true. Because I now had enough information in the form of a rumour to act on, his right to privacy trumped my right to know. They would not disclose and advised we simply have no contact with him. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Bloody pointless! We did go NC and we have not seen him in a decade or been to any events where he might attend. As it turns out, he DOES have a record! 3 years in prison for sexually abusing his niece. He was under a sexual harm prevention order at the time I put in the disclosure request which limited the sort of contact he was allowed to have with any children.

Even knowing he’d had contact with my children when I submitted the request, the police still deemed it inappropriate to disclose this information to me. What’s even the point?! Anyway, you know this guy is a loser. Just avoid him. Tell your dc he’s a bad person and to stay away from him. I doubt the police will be much help, but I’d report any dodgy behaviour.

This isn’t a real thing. People can submit names to it and the group that runs them can add them, but it’s not a formal list, like in the US where there is a public facing registry that is searchable. It’s just run by a vigilante group. Which yes, provides some public information, but none of the sexual offenders I know are listed there, so not helpful at all for making sensible decisions about whether people pose a risk. To be fair, most sexual abusers are never convicted, so the best thing you can do is rely on your gut instinct because official records are going to leave out 90+% of them.

This is an example of when the Police won't disclose information - it's not relevant at this moment ("having concerns years ago"), there isn't an incident that has happened, the people around this person are not in a position where they ("dc are older now") are vulnerable for abuse, it's more of an "I wonder if" thing.

I know this won't be a popular post, but there have been cases where disinformation (and ignorance) has caused significant harm (nosy neighbour) - Dr Yvette Cloete, the pediatrician who a neighbour mis-reported as being a pedophile (not understanding the meaning of the words, just recognising "pedo") and was hunted from her home. Source - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4719364.stm
And Christopher Jeffries, the man accused of murdering Joanna Yeates because "he looked a bit weird". https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/sep/16/joanna-yeates-police-apologise-christopher-jefferies

People can apply for Claires Law but Police will want to know if there is a legitimate reason, if they have close contact, if there's been an incident etc, and it's not a case of being a nosy neighbour. Not commenting on the OP's situation, just hopefully giving a little clarification generally.

I would say I’m shocked but unfortunately I’m not.

You can make the request and see what happens.

But you’ve been warned about him, advised what to do so it might not make much difference. Assume the worst and act accordingly.

https://www.police.uk/rqo/request/ri/request-information/sarahs-law/information/v1/sarahs-law-child-sex-offender-disclosure-scheme/

I don't. It's not official, it's not accurate and has no proper oversight.

It is accurate in the only sense that matters- it lists people and the offence(s) for which they were charged and convicted. I came across the one I mentioned earlier when I was reading an article, and when I typed in the name of my area for a nosy, nearly fell out of my chair when my neighbour and LOTS of local men appeared. I'm not going to be specific, save to say that one had been in my house doing a job and one had offered to help with something else. I wouldn't have had a clue otherwise.As another poster pithily said, they are everywhere.

The problem is - and it's a huge problem - that almost all offences go unreported and unconvicted. So official sites identify offenders but we all know they are 1 in 100 or so at most (maybe less, given that only 3% of offences reported to the police end in conviction, because most people drop out of it - and 80% or so of sexual assaults are not reported).

So the official maps are .,... incomplete ... to put it mildly and we all know it. Which leaves these unofficial ones, with all the problems of lack of verifiability, possibility of mistakes, malicious reports, lack of upkeep etc.

There's a gigantic hole in accurate record keeping here.

Failing any sort of complete and official database, what else are people supposed to do? It risks wrong information and vigilanteism but what else can people do but use the information that is given?