AIBU to feel betrayed after protecting my son’s secret for years?

[Lovinggran]

Hi everyone. I’ve just created this account because I am drowning in anger and carrying a secret that is starting to break me.

In December 2021, my son (who was 18 at the time, now 23) viewed and shared an indecent image of a minor. My husband and I knew absolutely nothing about it until the police turned up at our door at dawn with a search warrant. They knew exactly what they were looking for—they seemed keen to see Apple devices, which only my son had, and they ignored our Android devices. They took him into a room alone, and because he was an adult, they legally couldn't tell us what he said.

After they left, my son claimed it was "just an app," "just one picture," and that he "didn't know she was underage." The police ultimately took No Further Action (NFA). To protect him and keep the peace, we agreed to sweep it under the rug, pretend it never happened, and never speak of it again.

Fast forward to recently: my son and his partner had a baby. My husband and I stepped up as kinship carers and raised our grandson for his entire first year. Since then, the relationship has broken down, and they are now slowly and cruelly cutting us out of our grandson’s life.

The pain of being discarded after giving a year of our lives to that baby has made me incredibly angry. I started looking into how the police and search warrants actually work, and it seems it's unlikely it was "one-off accident" story he gave us was a lie to protect his own skin. The police apparently don't get warrants for single accidental click; they trace specific digital footprints and active sharing. The police knew it was his iPhone before they even knocked on our door.

I feel so betrayed. I compromised my own morals and peace of mind for five years to protect him based on a watered-down lie, and now he is weaponising our grandson against us.

I am just so full of rage. I don't want to carry his toxic secret anymore, but worry about the fallout it would cause.

Because he was a teenager surrounded by teenagers so couldn’t be “kept away from
teenagers”?

You’re talking about ‘accessing indecent images’ as though it’s an ongoing situation. He was 18. He’s now 23. The police took no further action. Do you really think if there were child abuse images on his devices that would have been the outcome ?

Yes. I understand that. He was 18 at the time of the incident. But I don’t see the relevance of his age now.

Personally, I wouldn’t say anything. Other people have a habit of drawing their own conclusions and rumours will no doubt surface that you know more than you’re letting on and that you were complicit in the images. You never know what people could end up saying, they may say things like you supplied the images 🤷‍♀️ It’s been 5 years, just leave it. People make up shit all the time because they’ve got nothing better to do, don’t find yourself on the end of it.

I’m not quite sure what your point is then - that you think he should be kept away from teenagers now?

OP hasn’t disclosed what the image actually was, so why are you going straight for ‘child abuse pictures’ when you have absolutely nothing to base that on ? You’re just another poster who is making massive leaps without knowing the facts. And even more disturbing, you’re throwing terms like ‘paedophile’ around without even knowing what it actually means. The police took no further action, which suggests that he accessed an image of a girl without knowing her age, or who has misrepresented her age - the internet is full of them. He was 18 at the time, so perfectly possible. Had the images been of the age range that interests actual paedophiles, the result wouldn’t have been no further action.

No. I was just trying to clarify what that poster meant.

Apologies I think we’re agreeing I should’ve quoted the poster before you

Absolutely agree. Some of the mindless, knee jerk reactions here should give OP an idea of how her son will be viewed, and how her own involvement and ‘cover up’ will be treated.

Interesting thread. The law says innocent until proven guilty. Not so on MN - guilty until you can prove you’re innocent, even when the police have decided there is no case to answer. I really hope some posters here are never called for jury service.

Same way men that don't get a conviction for rape are often rapists regardless what the jury says.

They do actually get charged with it though to appear before a jury

@ThreadGuardDogand some of us have clearly never been a victim of abuse - and the joke that is the justice system in relation to dealing with these animals. A tiny fraction of abusers are prosecuted, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. OP openly said he did it - he shared an inappropriate pic of a minor. I actually hope YOU are never on jury duty 🙄

Not the same thing at all. This didn’t get beyond the police checking his devices. Had their been evidence to support the shouts of ‘paedophile’ so prevalent on the thread, the result wouldn’t have been NFA.

There is a world of difference between an 18 year old viewing an image of a minor, unaware that they are underage, and paedophilia. OP says DS claimed he wasn’t aware that they were underage, which suggests an image of someone very much older than would attract an actual paedophile. Which is what posters here are calling him. I would hope that anyone serving on a jury dealing with this kind of thing would know the difference, and would be aware what the word actually means. ‘Eight is too late’ may not be a term that sits well with a lot of people, but it’s accurate.

And while CSA is an awful thing for anyone to go through, it shouldn’t colour the judgement of any such victim sitting on a jury. They are supposed to be impartial and focused on actual evidence.

You’re actually wrong here. Images of CSA of is a very easy prosecution- if they are there, that’s your evidence. It’s not like rape, it’s not he said she said.

this is why so many are prosecuted.

People get so fucking ridiculous about this. I’ve had people online tell me that my husband is a pedophile because we dated when I was 16 and he was 18, and he was “an adult involved with a minor.” We were a year apart in school and lived (still live) in a US state where the age of consent is 16.

It may be illegal for an 18-year-old to have explicit images of a close-in-age girl under 18, but a p(a)edophile is an adult or an older teenager primarily or exclusively attracted to prepubescent children. It’s a psychiatric diagnosis.

Yep. Many people on the thread not understanding that a paedophile doesn’t relate to what you do, it’s what you are.