I am really struggling for a title for this one - TW re images of children

[miss3]

When I was younger (much younger), very early 20s just out of uni (so probably 20 or 21), I had a boyfriend and was with him for around two years. We moved in together towards the end of those two years, and things were generally ok. Not the love of my life but not awful. Realistically it was never going to last. I had a feeling something was up as he was being extremely secretive with his laptop. Never an issue previously as we never lived together. I looked (not going to give a long preamble about why like some people do, I was just doing my due diligence). I found a website he was on called something like adult work, where he had been talking to a load of redhead escorts. Shocking but not illegal. I was furious. I went back through his search history and found a website with a reference to 'jail bait' and clicked on it. Found he had an account that had pictures of very young people on it. I am talking single figure ages. All dressed but all in dance leotards. He had saved hundreds and hundreds of them and had made quite frankly vile comments on them. The website wasn't hard to find, wasn't on the dark Web, just a random website. I suspect it wouldn't exist anymore. Iremember feeling physically sick and called my friend who told me to take his laptop to the police station. Which I did. They took one look and said that he hadn't done anything technically illegal so they couldn't do anything. I confronted him and he did not ask me to stay when I said it was over and he just begged me not to tell anyone. I remember his friend randomly harassing me via text when I left and I texted my ex saying if his friend wouldn't stop I would tell them why I left. The harassment stopped. I left and ended the lease, and never spoke to him again. He never tried to contact me. He is now a nurse, has a wife and a child, and I just feel like I have never really addressed my feelings around all of this. I was so young. I was really ashamed that I had been in a relationship with him and now wish I had taken his laptop to his workplace. I just feel like I handled it all wrong and he is likely a paedophile. Not sure where I am going with this, just think I needed to write it down as I have never told anyone apart from that one friend.

Sorry if the title isn't ok. Mn feel free to change.

Just to add this all ended when I was about 23/24 and I am now mid 30s

Ohhh that's difficult. I get why you feel the way you do. I hope someone can advise. I think he is a pedophile but not sure what you can do now? Maybe tell the wife your story? I don't know. She might not belive it - but I would probably feel better given he has a child with her....

Also I don't mean that the redhead bit was shocking, not at all, just that it was shocking that he was talking to escorts, but he obviously had a thing for redheads because they all had red hair.

I went back through his search history and found a website with a reference to 'jail bait' and clicked on it. Found he had an account that had pictures of very young people on it. I am talking single figure ages. All dressed but all in dance leotards

This happened to me with my ex. It's so similar they could almost be the same person.

That's scary. Do you mind me asking what you did?

I left him that day. In terms of legal repercussions there weren't any as the images I saw weren't illegal. They could have been downloaded from a dance/gymnastics website for example. I strongly suspect this is an established legal loophole for pedophiles who don't want to have illegal material on their devices.

I've just asked AI and it said this:

"Is primejailbait still a website? No. PrimeJailBait was a prominent clear-web/dark-web network operation that was targeted, dismantled, and seized during major international law enforcement crackdowns (most notably around the FBI/Europol operations targeting Playpen and related networks). Its operators and major contributors were federally prosecuted and sentenced."

He had images saved on his lap top of children in dance leotards no older than 9 and the Police said there was nothing they could do! I’m beyond disgusted but I’m not shocked

Yes that is exactly the type of image. They had clearly been taken from dance websites or people's social media. How awful you found the same thing. It is a horrible feeling.

I literally pleaded with them and they said because they were fully clothed he had not broken the law. My research tells me they should have investigated and done more especially as he had just qualified as a nurse.

Yup. I walked out my house in the middle of winter with soaking wet hair with not even a coat. Makes me feel sick thinking about it.

Found he had an account that had pictures of very young people on it. I am talking single figure ages.

What a strange way to describe children aged 9 and under 😳

Sorry I am just finding it really hard to type in plain terms and name it as what it is. I haven't thought about it for a long time and it has all come back up recently and for some reason it is impacting me in a really horrible way so apologies if I don't type things out how I probably should.

Children.

Yes. You know what I meant. I said children in the title. Please don't derail this based on my frantically typed out thread.

I am thinking about filing an anonymous report via NSPCC.

This brings back a memory of reading an article, or watching a documentary (can't quite remember) in the early 00s about websites like this. It was about parents who signed their children up for 'modelling', all leotards and swimsuits and inappropriate poses that were obviously aimed at a particular clientele but not (at that time at least) illegal. I can't remember much and don't fancy googling it but I think this may have been a big thing at one time.

This is abhorrent, and you absolutely did the right thing at the time by going to the police. It's incredibly saddening and worrying that they wouldn't or couldn't do more though. You could contact NSPCC anonymously now, explaining what happened at the time and why you still have concerns given his profession and that he has his own child.

I don't even know if they would have a record of it as I only spoke to someone on the desk and they didn't write anything down (I don't think).

If I made a report would anything actually happen and would it be traced back to me?

Why is the bit you’ve chosen to focus on picking her language apart? If she’d said ‘children’ it could mean 16 or 17 years olds- ‘single figure ages’ is quite a clear way of describing that these images were under 10.

OP- you did everything you possibly could at the time. If the police wouldn’t take it seriously I’m not sure what else you could have done.

This. We’ve got nonces (and looking and down loading pictures of kids does make him a nonce) waltzing round free with no so much as a prosecution never mind a conviction free working as a nice not only that now has a child of his own. I think someone’s language and expression is the least of peoples worries

If I was you I would probably tell his wife, I would 100% want to know this

Please tell me he isn’t a children’s nurse

No he is not