paedophile on our street!

[katierocket]

one of my neighbours knocked on the door this afternoon to tell me that the guy that lives 5 doors from us has just been convicted of downloading child porn. He got a fine, suspended sentence and counselling. She wasn't being a vigilante but just said she thought those with parents might want to know. She has a 5 yr old and 7 yr old and lives next door but one to him. I felt really sorry for her because she was saying how his house overlooks their back yard and she's worried because they were running round in the nude in the paddling pool during the summer.

It might my heart drop when I heard it. I've never actually seen him and don't intend to start throwing eggs or shouting at him even if I do see him but it is frightening to think it can be so close to home.

doormat I cannot understand which comments make you feel sick. Nobody on here is defending paedophiles. It's just that some of us don't believe that shouting nonce at people is a reasonable or useful response.

Lets get one thing straight. Being a paedophile is not a crime. Never has been, never will be. Nobody can be prosecuted, or should be persecuted for what they think. But acting on peadophilic instincts is a crime. And I do think that there should be more consistent (preferably longer) sentences for people who commit sexual crimes against kids. And I'd probably support a medical form of castration as well if it could be shown to alter their behaviour.

I have not ever, in RL or this life said that peadophilia isn't completely wrong and am disgusted that you could accuse me of contributing to "people getting away with these crimes". You seem to be deliberatley misunderstanding my arguments (or maybe you just can't understand a rational argument about this)

On my "ignorance is bliss" comment - I was trying to explain that if a child doesn't know something, they CANNOT be affected by it. I think that a child would be more affected by being warned about the bad men who would do awful things to them than they would be by somebody taking pictures of them without their knowledge. For those of you who need it spelling out I DO NOT THINK TAKING PICTURES IS OK. I just don't see that it can actually have any effect on a child or adult if they don't know those pictures have been taken.

And doormat - there always were this many child murders - they just weren't so well publicised by the tabloid press before.

prufrock lets get one thing straight I never accused you or anyone else of "contributing to these crimes". Tell me where I wrote that. You are reading my post wrong and I will not be accused of that.

Your ignorance is bliss comment, who said anything about the children knowing. Read the posts properly as I would never tell a child if that happened.But it knocks me sick the actual thought that someone can go and photograph children and get their so called kicks from it.People can be ignorant about what goes on around them but I dont want to.

sorry "contributing to help people get away with these crimes"

prufrock also if you dont want to shout nonce that is up to yourself. Most people on this thread have said that is unacceptable behaviour, and I can understand this but if I want to I will.
As for the "or maybe you cant understand a rational argument about this" are you implying that I am some sort of idiot or what.

We all have different views and opinions but there is no need to be aggressive or personal.

Castration has been tried, it does work as they don't need their penises to commit these crimes, if you know what I mean. Paedophilia is on the increase, largely due to the internet because now groups of them can swap information and images easily downloaded. Whereas before you might have got one loner who did things by himself, now you have someone who is part of a group, which fills them with confidence.

I do not also think that rehabiliation works (sorry Secret). As one Paedophile said, you cannot change someone's sexuality, so I think that whilst Paedophile's are still in our community, they pose a threat to our children. If you take the big names, such as Roy Whiting, you will find that these men committed less serious crimes, but their identities were kept secret and they were allowed back into the community. As Sara Payne said, if she had known that a Paedophile was living locally, the children would not have been playing out alone. Just because someone only looks at child porn on the pc does not mean that they will not do something more serious in the future.

I don't know what to do with Paedophile's or how we can get rid of them, we probably never will. But I do think that parents have a right to know if a CONVICTED Paedophile is living in their local area, so should schools and so on. Acts of retribution should not be tolerated, every person has a right to live and the rights of their families should also be taken into consideration. In the past Paedophile's have been re-housed next to schools and playgrounds which clearly is not right. So a better system should be in place to ensure that every caution is taken that the offender is not re-housed anywhere near children's facilities. They also be tagged.

There has been some talk here of their rights as human beings, well to me children have more rights than criminals. They have their whole lives ahead of them, why should their little lives and innocence be put at risk for the sake of Paedophiles and their families? Our priorities should always lie with the children, the criminals have made their choices, and to a certain extent their families have made their choices too, to stick with the offender, give them a second chance, etc. That's all very well, but they are choices you are free to make, children are not free to make such choices about their lives, and it is up to us to protect them at all costs.

That should say, castration "doesn't" work! Doormat and Prufrock you both have differing opinions on this and it's a very sensitive subject, let's not turn it into a personal argument but agree to differ? Posts are easily misinterpreted, especially on a topic such as this.

Rhubarb I agree it is an emotive subject and people do get upset. But I will not be accused of saying or writing something that I never.

Rhubarb: schools are informed, as are various other institutions such as leisure centres and (for some reason I can't fathom) some publicans.

Fair enough, but my point is that my dd could be playing at her friend's house and for all I know, their dad could be a convicted Paedophile. If I knew then at least I could protect her from going there alone, and possibly save her innocence and her life ending in tatters.

Doormat, the truth about child murder is that the rate has been stable for over 25 years at around five killings by strangers. It is a very, very rare crime. On the other hand over seven thousand children die every year in road accidents, and around 500-700 die every year at the hands of their parents - usually mothers or stepfathers (mostly mothers, sadly).
Britain has one of the lowest murder rates in the world, far lower than the US and lower than most European countries.
For me one major problem with alerting people to a paedophile criminal in their area is it could well give people a false sense of security. Paedophiles have the access to transport as anyone else. A man who is in Scotland one day could be in Devon the next.
I think tagging is probably quite a good idea for criminals like these who present a real danger of reoffending. However, I personally don't want to live in the kind of society that I saw during the News of the World campaign, when terrified children were dragged out of their homes at night to parade around shouting hate-filled slogans they could not have possibly fully understood. And this, I'm afraid, is what I think a national register open to the public would result in, all over the country.
I am as repulsed and appalled as anyone at the sexual abuse of children.

BTW all the experts on child porn dismiss the idea that photographs of children playing (which seems to be a bit of a red herring in this debate as there is no evidence of anything like this happeneing, is there?) would appear on a child sex website. One woman (who was involved in trying to break paedophile networks) was talking on the radio and said something along the lines of 'If you think that then you clearly haven't seen what actually appears on these websites." which is pretty chilling.

IMO paedophiles and murderers do not have any human rights (I do believe though that it is different for manslaughter) and the moment they carry out any act like child abuse or murder they should have all their rights taken away - locked in cold dark cells where they can reflect on their crimes for the rest of their natural lives, I am sure that the money the prison service spends would drop if all their little treats were taken away and it should be as it is on death row - you stay in a cell 23 hours a day and get 1 hour of sunshine closely guarded and monitored and are not allowed to speak to any other inmates.

Punishment should mean that you are punish IMO and at the moment I think these dispicable people think they can do a little time and get back to their sick lives - that should not be the case.

As for the self defence - we were given lessons at school when I was 13 - but I cannot see how this is going to help a young child. They need to be educated in a way that the innocence we are trying to preserve is not taken away.

There should be classes that inform children the right and the wrong way for them to be treated - my stepmonster had a girl in her class who had been abused by her stepfather for years and he convinced this girl that it happened in every home and she knew no different.

It is weird that I would not leave my DP & DD alone for ages and closely watched his expressions when she was in the bath and giving him a hug etc.. it prayed on my mind and sent me a bit mad but he is not that way inclined at all and is the most wonderful loving man ever - You have to vigilant about everyone and this means the man in the street, your brothers friends, your DH/DP's friends and actually knowing would make life a whole lot easier - there are ones we do not know about and hopefully they will be caught and their names put on the list but as with any crime you do not know it has happened until the perpetrator has been caught surely giving us the names of the ones that have been caught would at least give us a head start when it comes to protecting our child.

aloha I dont agree with children knowing (only to be wary with strangers)but we inform any new neighbours who come into the neighbourhood so they can then be wary.
It may be a rare crime but reading newspapers etc it looks like it is on the increase.

Doormat I apologise profusely and with complete sincerity - my 3rd paragraph was addressed to angelmother (who did say that) not to you.
I really am terribly sorry for the confusion - I completely disagrre with you but am glad that we are disagreeing in a civilized manner. I'm not apologising for my snotty comment - but it really wasn't meant for you.

ok prufrock apology accepted, lets agree to disagree.

Yes, it probably does seem as if it is on the increase,but it really isn't.
I have no beef with warning neighbours etc on an ad hoc basis. I just think the current policy is best for society, personally. I also think the best way to protect children is to be with them as much as possible when they are tiny and to encourage them to communicate with you as soon as they are able. It's such a sad subject, but using children for sex is not new. The Victorians had child prositutes by the score. In Chaucer's time the king married an 11-year-old girl and had sex with her.

aloha this isnt a personal attack but doormat mentioned before about a child she knew who had been abused by a peadophile who had special needs-she wasnt unable to communicate to her parents what was going on. My daughter has learning difficulties and she is a vulnerable member of society, I personally would like to know if there were peadophiles living close to us so I could make sure my dd wasnt any more vulnerable than she already is.

I know its not a new thing aloha.But us as mothers must try and find a way to stopping this unacceptable behaviour, before it carries on into future generations. Lets all do something positive about it, instead of arguing. Even if it is a small voice, lets just do something.

sorry its supposed to read she was unable to communicate

but how can you stop it?

Even if you locked away all known paedophiles of any degree, there would always be the unknown ones. There will always be boys (and girls I suppose ) who grow up to be sexually interested in children. AFAIK, its not genetic, you can't protect future generations by locking people up for life. It is surely something that we have to cope with as a society, rather than prevent.

I don't know you can ever stop something like this completely. It does seem to be an enduring nasty twist in human nature. I think that it might help to sort out our disgusting care homes where children really do seem to suffer. To offer better support to parents so children get off to a better start (paedophilia does seem all to often to start wtih horrible things that happened to the offenders as children - most dictators were horribly hurt as kids too). There does seem to be some progress in breaking paedophile rings and making people aware that they are not anonymous on the internet, plus more international cooperation because most child porn does not originate in this country. I think moves to prevent sex tourism are a good idea too. I think we do have to take great care of our children without being too paranoid, which is a difficult trick to pull off, I agree. Children with special needs will always need more protection. And I think one thing that does need to change is the courts' treatment of witnesses with a mental disability - at the moment they tend to assume that those with limited intelligence also tend to lie, which is not true.
And as I said before, as long as people can travel then local warnings seem fairly useless to me. Maybe tagging could help, I don't know.
However, the very worst things that happen to children happen in families, and the sex offenders register becoming public won't help them.

Anyway, naming and shaming doesn't work. Look at Margaret Hodge. She's still in her job, isn't she?

I'd just like to clarify, having been obviously misunderstood earlier in this debate.

I do not believe that my FIL has been or ever will be rehabilitated.

He would still be abusing young girls if he hadn't attempted to begin on a different girl who had the guts to tell someone. He denied everything when caught. His numerous victims (family and family friends) proved otherwise.

My dh also does not believe that FIL is "cured". As some have said already, this is a sexual orientation - hence the name peadophilia - "love of children". You cannot change your sexual orientation, but you can exercise self-control and not act upon it.

In the case of my FIL, he has no access to family and is excluded from any visits. He will never set foot in my house and will never be alone with ds.

As paedophiles, like psychopaths, have set ways and preferred targets, the courts have deemed that he is not a risk to the public at large. It's his family, namely me and my son, nieces nephews etc who are at enormous risk.

FIL will always be a paedophile. However he will always be dh's dad. If we ever have a daughter, then God help us.

i personally think that it's a very thin line re these photo's(and i know we're talking hypothetically about this neighbour-wether he took photos), it's obviously in the eye of the beholder. if their mum took them they'd be innocent pics, if their pervert of a neighbour took them, they'd NOT be innocent. They would have been taken with a sexual motivation! I watched a great film on this subject recently called "snap decision" where what a mum saw as innocent a photo developer saw as strange. It's a true story too.......

How close is too close? If you knew for cast iron fact that a paeophile was living 2 streets ok, would you feel safe just because they didn't live on your street? I reckon that there's nowhere in the country I could live that a paedophile wouldn't also be living within 5 miles of me. And yet 5 miles is still too close for comfort. So, unless you're inclined to reach for your gun now, what's the point in knowing for sure?