Supporting an abuser?

[SensitiveNamechange]

Namechanged for sensitivity reasons. Can't give details, but recently found out that a friend has been accused of sexually abusing a child. I am friends with him, and the abused child's mother. Right now I hate him, and am trying to support the mother and child as well as I can. I firmly believe that it is important to believe a victim no matter how difficult it can be, but part of me just doesn't think it is possible.
He is my friend, he has cared for my DD (another worry, frankly) and I have cared about him for years. Is it wrong to want to help him too? I don't realistically think I can, without jeapordising my relationship with the mother, who is frankly more deserving of my support.

What to do? Sorry, it just helps to try to unmuddle my thoughts a little writing it down.

i don't think i can bear to check my email now

No, all opinions are welcome on this parenting site Santa.

I am struggling to believe that on a parenting site people are reluctant to support the children??? I mean wtaf?

If everyone were to report confidence's comment, perhaps they would get the same response I got.

It was a private email, so I am not going to cut and paste it on a public area of the board.

Thunderboltsand lightning - Unless people don't believe people who've been mugged, burgled or defrauded for example, there's no reason to disbelieve someone who has been sexually assaulted or raped.

Well if I had two friends, and one of them said the other one had mugged, burgled or defrauded him, and the one who had been accused said he was innocent, and there was a pending court case to ascertain the truth -

Then yes, I would take exactly the same attitude and reserve judgment until the judicial process had taken its course. It's got nothing to do with "not believing" any specific individual - it's got to do with the fact that one of them must, necessarily, be lying, and the whole point of a court case is to find out which. I'm not sure why you find this such a radical idea when it's the entire basis of how justice in civilized countries works.

But let me get this straight (so I can tell whether there's any point in continuing the conversation). You think that if someone ACCUSES someone else of abusing them they MUST, 100% certainly, be telling the truth. And therefore that judicial process is completely redundant. We should just lock people up and throw away the key the moment somebody says they committed abuse against them, with no further consideration necessary.

Right?

Wrong.

There are a small minority of false or incorrect allegations. However overwhelmingly children don't lie about these things, so it's better to believe the victim rather than the accused molester. Especially given the BS that always arises in these cases about how children lie about these things (see this thread for examples).

Now as you're barking out the questions, do you want to explain exactly what you mean by a "minor indiscretion with a 15 year old", in the context of an accusation against an adult man?

Victorialucas - the system means innocent until proven guilty. People not proven guilty ARE innocent. This is the way it has to be. There is not a "not proven guilty but they probably did it" category. If there was our justice system would be like that of a third world.

There are a small minority of false or incorrect allegations. However overwhelmingly children don't lie about these things, so it's better to believe the victim rather than the accused molester.

You seem to be starting with the assumption that you have to make the decision of believing one or the other - and most importantly, thereby DISbelieving the other. This is unfortunately the more offensive side of all the supposedly noble sentiments about "supporting the children" here: everybody who is taking that stance is taking upon themselves, unilaterally and with no awareness of the details of the case, to decide that the accused man is guilty.

I don't have to believe the victim rather than the accused, or the other way around. I can accept that there is a case in process and suspend my judgment until it is resolved. Yes, if the victim were my friend, I would proceed with them on the assumption that they're telling the truth and try to be supportive. If the accused were also my friend, I'd probably try to explain what a difficult situation that puts me in (which they'd probably understand), but certainly not just write them off with an assumption of guilt.

Out of interest, how do you know that "overwhelmingly" children don't lie about these things? I certainly think there are probably a lot more real accusations than false, though how "overwhelmingly" I don't know, and I'm not prepared to pretend there's some objective validity to my hunch. I certainly know from varied experience with them that children lie about all kinds of shit - some of them much more often than others, just like adults.

Oh FFS...

I'd better repost what I said there, given that Mumsnet are deleting posts.

"Wrong.

There are a small minority of false or incorrect allegations. However overwhelmingly children don't lie about these things, so it's better to believe the victim rather than the accused molester. Especially given the BS that always arises in these cases about how children lie about these things (see this thread for examples)."

In the meantime confidence, you havnen't answered my question. Do that first before you can expect to interrogate anything else I've said.

Now as you're barking out the questions, do you want to explain exactly what you mean by a "minor indiscretion with a 15 year old", in the context of an accusation against an adult man?

Woof woof. Sure.

Someone said that the police tend to wait until they're pretty certain of conviction in these cases because of the potentially harrowing effect upon victims having to give evidence. My point was simply that "sexual abuse of a child" covers a huge range of actions, some of which will be much more harrowing than others. Getting up in court and describing how you were anally raped would be a lot more harrowing than giving evidence that somebody touched your leg inappropriately, IMO.

The OP didn't give any information about what the accusation was, so we have no way of knowing where it was on that spectrum, and therefore how much the police would be trying to protect the victim from having to give evidence. I was careful to point out that I wasn't suggesting any kind of sex crime is not very serious and shouldn't be punished very seriously, so I'm not sure why the comment was deleted. I'm used to the screaming hysteria around here that prevents some people from being able to read what's in front of their eyes, but still...

Lol at the police 'protecting the victim from having to give evidence'- what kind of fairy tale world do you think we live in?

Longgone- no not the 3rd world, try the whole rest of the world minus UK, USA, and ex colonies which have kept our legal system. Most of the 'civilised' world uses an inquisitorial system and have much higher rape conviction rates.

OP, I think it's really simple. Terrible, but simple. Your first responsibility is to your child. For that reason alone you should treat this accusation as potentially true.

If it's false, you might (probably will) lose a good friend. You would have said to an innocent man, "I believe you're capable of this terrible crime". That's a dreadful thought and I understand why it's so hard.

But if it's true, and you keep him in your life, you're exposing your child to the attentions of an abuser. And also validating his version of events at the expense of your friend's child.

It's an awful choice to have to make and you have my sympathy. I hope this helps.

it was the difference in age you stressed confidence not level of assault. you are being disingenuous in your answer.

why is a 5 year olds abuse harrowing and a 15yrolds 'a minor indiscretion'

i would just like to point out that none of my posts have been deleted due to mumsnet guidelines. i did not say anything offensive or attack anyone i merely repeated someone else's offensive idea that child abuse is ok with a 15yo in order to challenge it.

when mnhq decided the original comment was offensive they decided to delete all posts that repeated what was said despite them doing so in order to challenge the idea whereas confidence stated it as an opinion.

"screaming hysteria"

You're the one who got his post deleted confidence and all the other posts that referred to it after because ti was so creepy.

Also pretending that someone is going to be prosecuted for a sex crime because they touched a fifteen year old's legs is so disingenous it's almost funny.

WTF is with this post deleting all over the shop?

WTF was wrong with my post?

Can you point us to a record of a trial where someone was being accused of sexual abuse because he'd touched a 15 year old's leg Confidence?

Thought not.

Am i missing something ? The person has been charged with child abuse FFS. A child is someone aged 16 or under, end of.

Its a horrible situation to be in for this "friend" to turn out to be a paedophile but no of course you cannot support them. You must feel sick

Victoria - Lol at the police 'protecting the victim from having to give evidence'- what kind of fairy tale world do you think we live in?

You're not keeping up. That wasn't my comment it was a comment by prettyfly earlier in the thread - go back and read up if you want the context. I only quoted it in explaining why there are some situations at least where I think that's NOT likely to be the case. Or at least, less likely than others.

Santa - I actually said "a minor indiscretion against a 15 year old". ie, I didn't say that ALL abuse against 15 year olds is "minor". I only meant that there is a continuum of levels of abuse, from minor to very very major.

Yes, I suppose I did mean too that the extremely young age of a five year old would make it more harrowing in their case than for a fifteen year old, all else being equal, because they would have less adult understanding to make sense of it. I could be wrong about that I suppose.

Anyway, I thought the disclaimer I ended with was enough to clarify that I wasn't attempting to make light of any accusation of abuse. Maybe I was wrong and should have phrased it differently in the first place. If so I'm sorry for the misunderstanding.

Op whilst I can sympathise with your hurt and confusion I personally would find it hard to support an abuser.

I too have namechanged, not because I am ashamed to admit the sorry tale below but I don't want my mumsnet name anonimity taking away too, as it feels we have lost enough in the last 2 years.

Dh's brother (a primary school teacher) was arrested some time ago on child porn charges. We instantly made the decision that we had to protect our child first and that bil could have contact with our dc. we made it clear that we didn't want his head on a stick, we were fully prepared to apologise if he was innocent but we couldn't take the risk of having him near our child.

This decision has cost dh his family. His parents barely speak to him and have only seen our child for the first time since easter this christmas, despite only being 15 miles away. I will never be able to forgive them for the things that they have said and done to us in the past 2 years including throwing horrific insults at my parents who have remained completely uninvolved in the whole fiasco. My 4 year old even returned from a visit to his grandparents and burst into tears asking me why my brothers dsd was not his 'real' cousin (we accept her fully in our family, she is my niece and my lovely db is her by her own choice). he didn't even understand what real cousin meant.

Obviously all this is irrelavant to you, I just want you to know that I understand that the ripples that spread affect everyone in ways you cannot imagine. My little family has been through hell and I now suffer from anxiety, insomnia and panic attacks, things I never imagined would happen to me. I would never imagine how one persons actions can affect so many people and my heart goes out to the 'real' victims, as our pain doesn't come close.

Dh has lost not only his brother and best friend but also his parents and siblings who would rather not have to face up to uncomfortable things than protect the children in their family. The fact that he has admitted guilt hasn't changed the fact that they view us as 'bad'. The repercussions are huge for all involved.

Outrageous - I don't think it's the OP's child. It's another child.

Confidence - you're right of course - the accusation is against another woman's child.

I was just making the point that whether she believes her own child has been abused or not, if she supports the alleged abuser and keeps him in her life, then she's potentially risking her own child's safety.