Would getting drunk and exposing self to police.....

[Cherriesarered]

Basically, a friend's partner, had not told her that he has had a conviction for this. She only found when the police asked partner for a DNA sample under Operation Nutmeg. I have googled operation nutmeg and it says serious sex offenders. Any police officers out there?

Can she find out if he's telling the truth in any way? That it was a just a drunken stunt? There is other stuff too but I feel bad enough sharing this. I am worried about her, her children and others!

a DNA on record . maybe - isn't DNA taken automatically if you are arrested? But why would he be being asked for it NOW and related to this operation ? I would be anxious too.

If she reads this www.parentsprotect.co.uk/police_disclosure_scheme.htm about Sarah's Law, she can read how to find out if he is likely to be a danger.

Getting drunk and exposing yourself to police is not a serious sexual offence, so if this is what Operation Nutmeg covers, he must have done something more serious.

The operation is to collect dna from people convicted (before 1994) of 'serious' offences. This is mainly murder and 'serious' sex crimes. In theory I imagine that exposure could have led to a conconviction of gross indecency which is a trigger offence. The forces are meant to review on a case by case basis to see if chasing up a sample is proportionate to the offence.

So he may well be telling the truth, but I would suggest your friend asks for a lot more detail.

BBC report on operation Nutmeg

It's not necessarily about sex offences. It is however about DNA collection from former prisoners whose conviction pre-dated the current system.

I doubt very much someone would have been imprisoned fo the offence you've described.

So either he's not being open about the extent of previous criminality, or there is a strand of Nutmeg not mentioned by BBC covering lesser offences.

If your friend has children, she could approach her local constabulary under Sarah's law to find out whether he has previous recorded sexual offences.

So this would have happened before 1994 and is likely to involve an actual sentence? :-(

Did he say he went to prison for the 'incident'? It does sound a bit unlikely that someone would be imprisoned for what he described as a drunken prank (and which really could have been as trivial as dropping his pants and shouting rude things at the police).

But please bear in mind that the police and the law are, these days, not necessarily on the side of the public. I mean no insult to the many decent and honest individual officers, but chasing people for DNA after the best part of 20 years during which they have not ofended again strikes me as yet another infringement of civil liberties. Especially if this man is telling the truth and did something silly but not harmful.

He has made it out to be trivial and what if it is just that? It the not knowing really! I'm not sure that is the only thing that has happened.

HOw long has she known this man? In that time, have there been any aspects of his behaviour that have caused her any concern? If she's been with him for 10 years and he's always been lovely, then she should probably take his word for it that it was a trivial incident.

If she's only been seeing him for a few months and he's upset her or her friends or family with inappropriate behaviour/lying/aggression then perhaps she should think about binning him regardless of what he did or didn't do in 1994.

Oh, and this isn't 'rape apologism' to suggest that, if there are no other causes for concern, the OP's friend accepts his explanation. It's not known what this man did or didn't do, and definitely not the case of a woman or women disclosing that he attacked them and being dismissed as liars, fantasists or accusing the wrong man.

Before you (or anyone else) brand your mate's BF a nonce or worse, read this and see what happens when idiots get overexcited and the police mislead them.

We've known him 20 years, this would have happened before 1994. I wouldn't call anyone anything without evidence but the reason that I am concerned is that there was another incident where police became involved several years ago but more recently this new thing about operation nutmeg. I don't think my opinion about whether he is nice or not (he is) is really relevant. He may be nice but can he be trusted. I have met a paedophile and a serial sex offender and they were perfectly able to come across as decent nice people.