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Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

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

310 replies

exasperatedmummy · 16/10/2008 09:32

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?

OP posts:
Quattrocento · 16/10/2008 17:58

"if you asked me to draw a peadophile, then it wouldn't look much different to this man"

How about if I asked you to spell paedophile?

Blu · 16/10/2008 18:13

The crucial missing evidence is net curtains.

Surely a bone fide paedophile would conceal himself behind net curtains?

That's what we must all be on the lookout for!

Boco · 16/10/2008 18:16

The net curtains must be stained a kind of nicotine yellow or it's no go.

Blu · 16/10/2008 18:18

Listen at the window - is he humming 'd'you wanna be in my gang...'

But seriously...I had to pmsl at Carmenere's MN troll theoy, and Bundle.

CrushWithEyeliner · 16/10/2008 18:19

why on earth are people saying "poor man?"

PatsyCline · 16/10/2008 18:26

Should we just declare that all men are to be classed as paedophiles from now on? We could grant the ones who somehow manage not to offend posthumous pardons.

My dad - a grey-haired, sometimes scruffy man in his 70s who hates having his hair cut - lives opposite a junior school and often stares out of the window during the day. This isn't because he has sexual feelings for the children, but because he loves glaring at the parents whose cars block his gates.

The OP's suspect has done nothing wrong.

Patsy

Blu · 16/10/2008 18:29

Well, so far he has been peered at by ExM, had his credentials as a possible peadophile picked over, potentially reported to the head of the school, and discussed in detail by hundreds of women and a couple of men he doesn't know.

Oh, and he has no curtains.

Boco · 16/10/2008 18:38

And he doesn't seem to be fully engrossed in his current reading matter, which can be frustrating.

TheProvincialLady · 16/10/2008 18:42

In my country it is a hanging offence. Along with poor choice of window dressing.

Twelvelegs · 16/10/2008 18:49

OP has done nothing though, just put words to a feeling that something's not right. She hasn't sent his photo to the Daily Mail or anything.

CrushWithEyeliner · 16/10/2008 18:54

exactly - he knows zip all about what OP has discussed on here so why are you saying poor man? Save your sympathy and defence for people who need it ffs.

ahundredtimes · 16/10/2008 19:09

Quite, she can't quite describe what seems wrong about it to her. So she went for his appearance, and you jumped on that and predictably cried 'the world's gone mad' and mocked her.

I'm just giving her the benefit of the doubt, that there was more to it than his curtains and book reading.

I genuinely don't think Instinct always equal ignorance. I think it's quite a powerful thing, but also a VERY difficult thing to act on because you think you might be being mad.

ahundredtimes · 16/10/2008 19:13

And ime the guy you think looks weird and acts weird - nine times out of ten, he IS weird. The other time he is a charming, bemused accountant.

It's very uncool to say it, but actually I think it's true. The person who acts odd, usually is odd.

Blu · 16/10/2008 19:18

There is a very serious question as to how we came to feel such unease, though. We may all occasionally have feeling of something we don't feel is 'right', but imo genuine concern and caution over potenial paedophilia has resulted in many of us needing to do something, anything to feel we can somehow control it. And in the absence of any real evidence, or blueprint of what a paedophile might 'look like' we make ourselves feel more in control by fixing on people to worry about.

I bet most of us have had a fleeting moment of suspicion over some man or other...and maybe some of the mocking on this thread is actually a 'note to self' about the suspicions we all have - just like expm.

Blu · 16/10/2008 19:20

This guy hasn't really done anything weird, though, has he? Not really what you would call weird.

And weird doesn't necessarily mean bad or harmful, does it?

ahundredtimes · 16/10/2008 19:22

Yes Blu, agree completely.

But also I worry that we increasingly don't trust our instincts, and now, if we're right thinking liberal types, are frightened of appearing like some hysterical mob mentality nutter at thinking such a thing or for the shadow of a thought having crossed our minds. On the one hand this information is corrupting [to us] but on the other is power.

That's sort of why I'm arguing this.

It's a fine line isn't it?

onager · 16/10/2008 19:23

Actually I was ok with the OP. She posted asking for discussion to sort out her feelings about it and said from the start she probably wouldn't do anything. That's what this place is for isn't it? talking things over.

What bothered me were the people saying "report him - it can't do any harm" which is either very naive or very mean. What is the reverse of Misogyny? Misandry? It's only a man so it doesn't matter anyway

ahundredtimes · 16/10/2008 19:24

Weird thing a distraction, sorry, my fault.

ahundredtimes · 16/10/2008 19:27

Well for my part onagar I don't think it came from a hatred of men.

She did talk it through, yes, and perhaps realized that her instinct was wrong. But instinct isn't always wrong, and she shouldn't feel ashamed for wondering it. It's not wrong imo, and it doesn't mean that anyone who wonders at how a man behaves staring in a school playground is an idiot, or hysterical, or paranoid.

But agree, it's a difficult and shadowy area to negotiate.

Twelvelegs · 16/10/2008 19:31

The only thing we can do that positively deals with paedophilia is to ensure that our children are safe, not in a locked in a room way but savvy and smart, stranger danger and other campaigns are pretty good. I always try to ensure my dcs (6 and under) are always in sight, as they get older the reigns will be loosened. I live in a big city and so rules are a little different here. In an ideal world I would live somewhere where we know eachother, but then that's worse as most people who prey on children also grrom parents..... oh bugger I'm back to The Daily Mail, now the immigrants that's another story!!

tatt · 16/10/2008 19:33

when walking the children to school I used to pass a house where a man sat looking out of the window. He would always watch us pass and sometimes even smile and wave. It is only mumsnet that made me realise that he was grooming my children for a sex attack.............................................................................................. .................................................................................................... .................................................................................................... ........

Have I mentioned that his chair was set back from the window and that when we watched him stand one day he could barely walk? Oh and he was very old and I think he's dead now as the house has been sold?

I like to think the children's waves brightened his day and I'm sorry we didn't actually go and see him.

Twelvelegs · 16/10/2008 19:40

tatt, your instinct told you he was harmless though.

tatt · 16/10/2008 19:46

my instincts tell me most men would not hurt a child and treating them all like paedophiles is dangerous.

KimiTrickOrTreat · 16/10/2008 19:52

The sad thing is a child lost/or needing help could be ignored by a man who was too scared of being branded a perv to help.

cory · 16/10/2008 19:52

I am a writer
I own a computer
I live next to an infants school
The computer is next to the window
And it is virtually impossible to write non-stop without ever having a 10 minute break for inspiration
It's me!!!!...oh no, I'm a woman and hence incapable of dirty thoughts. That's all right then

Dh works next to another infants whose somewhat hysterical headteacher tried to stop the council from building flats in the vicinity 'because people might look down on the children'. She was quite unable to explain the harm this would do the children, bloody place is like a fortress, would be impossible to break in and actually get near a child.

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