Mumsnet Jury needed for this one. **IMPORTANT**

[exasperatedmummy]

OK, i shall post this as i see it - please don't jump on me.

Around the corner from me is the local infant school. Opposite this are some private, purpose built flats, fairly modern. In one of the flats, which is pretty scruffy, no curtains, there sits a man, pretty much all day, he has his computor set up on the kitchen side, and he sits so that he can see the school. The past two mornings i have walked past there on the way back from dropping DD at play school - he has a book out, but he isn't reading it - he is staring quite intently at the school.

This is freaking me out, and sadly it is because if you asked me to draw a peadophile, then it wouldn't look much different to this man I don't want to judge the poor sod, there are lots of scenarios that it could be

• He could just like sitting in the window watching the world go by
• He might be lonely
• Maybe his grandchildren go to the school
• He might genuinely love children and be nostalgic about his own children/own childhood
• He might just be staring into space

I have noticed him a few times, it is quite conspicuous the way he sits in the window, so you tend to look, if he notices you he glares at you.

I'm uneasy about this, but im not sure what to do - if anything. My gut instinct is to leave well alone actually - what do you lot think?

"Yes Scummy's story is very sad and I'm amazed it happened in this country"

it's not just sad, it's a disgrace, but sadly doesn't surprise me, given the attitudes on here, of people being "helpful"

I'm sure it was instinct 100 yes. I'm talking very generally about prejudice rather than deliberately misunderstanding you. You said earlier (maybe jokingly) about all paedophiles looking a certain way with grey skin and anoraks and fly away hair - adn you may have been being flippant but it's true that we do have these images - EMS drawing of a paedophile. And we are reassured by people who look benign and employed and pink jumpered. But the point is, paedophiles can be handsome 29 year olds with girlfriends like a recent high profile one round here. I just think instinct only works up to a point - or we wouldn't get it wrong so often and paedophiles wouldn't be in such trusted roles as youth club leaders and vicars and close family friends. And innocent people wouldn't get arrested for looking odd. Is very complicated isn't it.

All i'm trying to say in a long winded way is instinct is not foolproof. Fools have instincts and sometimes those instincts ARE influenced by prejudice. (am not calling anyone a fool)

Yes, I understand.

I've liked this thread because it's been a discussion in principle about what is a knee jerk response, what instinct and what prejudice. What media hyperbole and what justified suspicion.

I think the man in the window quite incidental to the discussion btw.

And also what makes it confusing, is that is all you have to go on isn't it? Until something properly factual happens.

That the bloke in the park seems on the whole okay to me so ds1 still gets to go walk the dog, the guy running the youth club makes the hairs on my arms stand on end etc etc.

Interesting thread.

I think the reason this touches a nerve with me is from working with men with learning disabilities and mental illness in London - many of them were very vulnerable, and quite a few were definitely odd, often living alone. Seeing what they lived with day to day was quite depressing really. I used to get the bus to work with one man and he regularly got abuse from complete strangers just for looking weird. It was frightening really, and sad. You can't assume things with a quick glance, you could be so wrong.

Hmm. People are frightened by what they don't know aren't they? Or by 'otherness' in whatever way.

Though actually reading that again, their assumptions at a glance weren't wrong as such - in that they saw someone who they perceived to be different from what were their socially acceptable 'norms' - how they responded thereafter deeply wrong. Do you think? Or do you think there is no such thing as a 'norm'.

I might have to go to bed!

Well, I just think people respond with hostility to people because they look odd and that can be devastating and it makes me really sad. I did a photography project with a group of people with learning difficulties about self image and it was a real eye opener.

Even on this thread, the kind of 'save your pity for someone who deserves it...' - it's easy to assume that he's a freak - and we have no idea at all based on the information we have. And I'm not saying I get it right, it's hard to challenge our own assumptions about people - but I think it's important to try and to think the best until you have some kind of evidence otherwise.

Well said boco

I wouldn't have thought that a paedophile would be indulging himself in a jacuzzi - wouldn't it be incredibly obvious that he was getting aroused by all those little girls?

"Yes Scummy's story is very sad and I'm amazed it happened in this country"

it's not just sad, it's a disgrace, but sadly doesn't surprise me, given the attitudes on here, of people being "helpful"

Can you just clarify bundle: Do you think that a neigbour, seeing a man they didn't recognise on the balcony of a child's home at 3 in the morning, was in the wrong to call the police?

UPDATE: Nothing particular to report, apart from my shite observational skills.

Skanky curtain man was late this morning - wasn't there for the school run, but was reading his book for the return journey - he had gotten a good way through it.

To my bitter embarrasment, it was dodgy blinds (of the brown, nicotine stained roman variety) and not curtains.

He must have been cold too because he had a thick coat on

Exasperated feels a little silly on top of her exasperation. Still, no harm done - and maybe some good will come of it - if i DON'T see him there one day, it might be because he is ill, and i can check up on him..

Boco, exactly what you say about working with vilnerable people. me too!

There is of course one possibility that i have missed: He is the secret millionaire and he is trying to spot a harrassed and poor looking mummy stressing to get her little ones to school on time - Ive been in some rich peoples houses as part of my job, they were often scruffy and dodgy looking. Ah, that'l be what it is then.

yes MP they were wrong

you can ask people things

or take the trouble to find out about someone's welfare

next time you're in the supermarket with a child, don't be surprised if someone calls in an Armed Response Unit if a shoelace comes undone

OK bundle we will have to disagree about that

I hope that if a neighbour sees a man they don't recognise in my garden at 3 a.m. they call the police

I can understand that you disagree

you didn't say a stranger in your garden.
stop changing the goalposts to get your own way, you are wrong, and as demonstrated by scummy's post it can have devastating consequences.

Someone said (100?) if a person looks odd, chances are they are odd. Yes but odd doesn't mean dangerous.
I work with a woman who, when her medication needs adjusting, tends to shout instead of normal talking voice. And sticks interesting things in her hair, like plastic butterflies and twigs. But the only danger is to herself. She forgets to eat etc.

Use you gut instincts by all means but remember sad doesn't automatically mean mad and mad doesn't mean bad.

of course we've all reported stuff - I saw a man with a knife outside Sainsbury's in Dulwich one Sunday and got dh to call 999 (I was driving) - yes, he was scruffy looking, with mad "homeless" hair and weird clothes. but it was the knife that made us call...

no well I don't have a balcony so I can't say that

why would it be any different if he'd been walking in his garden?

The Bad People in SM's story are NOT the neighbours IMO, it was the police who were completely out of order.

er the neighbours got the cops round

instead of taking the trouble to find out if he was ok

Yes, you are absolutely right Fumf. It was a distracting thing to say - I didn't mean that weird equals dangerous.

Of course everybody in society should act with compassion and understanding towards the vulnerable or mentally sick, that is absolutely the ideal.

However, I still think there is a liberal cringe about saying 'this person is odd' or 'peculiar'.I think it has been demonstrated on this thread - I do still think it is a very shadowy area to negotiate. If I'm walking in the park and I see someone shouting to himself or whatever - do I go over and check up on his self-esteem? No. Is that prejudicial - or is it actually good sense? How much are these thoughts based on self-protection and how much on ignorance?

There is a half-way house three doors up from us. Often the people there come round the back of my house, one man while he was there always lay down on the ground by my car. I didn't find him frightening because he wasn't threatening, he was just 'weird' or 'vulnerable.'

How we respond having made that judgment is the challenge - like Boco's people on the bus. They weren't wrong about what they saw at first glance were they? But they were wrong to jeer at him about it.

This has gone a long way from the original OP. Though in a way I still think it is acceptable for EM to question the guy in the window - in the way lots of you don't - she then worked out here what to do with this question, and realized it amounted to nothing.

So actually, the prejudiced or instinctive thoughts aren't wrong imo. How you act on them is the important part.

I think what I'm trying to say, and probably not managing to, is that I think there is an argument which says it is okay for EM to ask the question, without being mocked. Because it's an important question.

That's all. But I'm realizing it is quite a tricky position to take because it sits uncomfortably close to crazy DM bigotry, and am trying to find out whether there is a subtle ground in between.

no no, we all have our prejudices ...

But we have to be careful to teach our children the subtleties of self-preservation balanced with compassion.
Because I work in the mental helath field, we sometimes come accross some 'intersting' people who greet me when I am with ds. So we often have conversations about sad, mad and bad people. The alcoholic who greets us noisily and cheerfully/profanely every morning as we walk to school is 'sad' not bad. He often tries to give me 10p for ds.
But ds knows that if he was by himself, he would refuse the 10p from him or anyone else IYSWIM. He knows that distinction.

oh hell, I don't know what I'm getting at here.
You are not wrong 100. the OP isn't wrong. the DM is wrong though