My dad and strange relationship with teenage girl

[Gramparsons]

I have name changed for this as it is embarrassing and disturbing and I really don't want to be outed.

In the past few months my dad has befriended a 14 year old girl who lives next door to my brother and nephews. She started tagging along when he was taking them to football training and for dinner after and she now has his number and she calls him to run her here there and everywhere. He thinks this is hilarious. The reaction in the family has gone from eye rolling, to bewilderment and now anger that he will not see sense. My brother used to give her lifts but stopped because people were calling him a pervert.

She phones him up to take her to the takeaway, pick her up from her friends house etc. and a while back he was late meeting me and my mum because she phoned him for a lift into town then when he was going she said 'oh are you not waiting to drop me off home'. She recently called him from a friends house where she had started an argument and she jumped in the car and shouted at him to drive, she rolls down his window and shouts at people, takes his camera to take pictures of herself and he thinks it is all funny.

He is an incredibly stubborn character and says he will not be told what to do. There is nothing going on, nothing wrong. He doesn't care if people are talking about him, he will not change his behaviour for other people. To some extent it's an admirable character trait but for fucks sake, he doesn't get what effect this is having on any body. My mum is embarrassed in case people are talking about her and scared that this girl may accuse my dad of something and it looks pretty much like he is grooming her doesn't it? He is driving her round buying her food (and knowing my dad and how he is generous with his money he will be giving her handouts like he does everybody). He has accused my mum of being jealous, she is angry at the position he is putting her in.

A couple of weeks ago she phoned and asked him to take her to McDonalds and that she had a 'massive favour' to ask him. She wanted him to take her shopping to a city about 3 hours away from us. He has gone today at the crack of dawn. He has now denied she asked, he said she told him she had been arguing with her boyfriend and he said she needed retail therapy. I honestly don't know what is worse. I don't believe there is anything going on, but I am aware it doesn't look that way. She could accuse him so easily. My other brother has said if he is accused of anything he will not be seeing his granddaughter, will not be able to take his grandson's to football. I agree.

My mum is distraught, she says she can barely bring herself to speak to him, she spent last night at my brother's house and had been sleeping in the spare room. I have sent him a text saying I am so angry he is completely disregarding my mum's feelings like this, and he should stop paying for things and see how long it takes her to lose interest. He should be taking his own grandchildren on trips like this, not a pushy hard faced girl he hardly knows. I have a choppy history with him and this is pushing me to the limit. I have had periods of no contact with him but we have grown close since the birth of my first baby.

I don't know what I think is going on. I know he likes to be useful, he goes out of his way to give lifts/run errands for anybody but this is not innocent to me. I don't think she has any interest in him but she is out for what she can get because he is a soft touch. It is making my skin crawl to think about them. I don't know what I want from writing this :((.

[fixedit]

Sorry I had read the thread and kind of wanted to know the outcome but had to add something to save the thread on threads I'm on.
Don't worry it wasn't a mini mini biscuit

[hollyisalovelyname]

Fixedit ?

[fixedit]

.

[Onceuponatimetherewas]

If the OP's dad hasn't been spending time with the girl recently, it's quite possible that someone in authority has spoken to him about the situation already, and has warned him off. I doubt that they would necessarily let the OP know what action they had taken.

[SilenceOfTheSAHMs]

Was thinking about this thread only the other day, how strange

[JudgeJudy79]

Also wonder how this one turned out. It's your mum I feel sorry for.

[endoftether12]

.

[Due2015]

What happened in the end?

[hollyisalovelyname]

OP did you sort it?

[Serotonin]

Any update OP?

[Petradreaming]

Apologies. I see the call has been made

[Cabrinha]

Petra, you need to read the thread. Even the last page would have done!

[Petradreaming]

The child needs help. Whether your father is grooming her or not is almost incidental. It is very worrying that this child is engaging with a much older man and her parents are unconcerned. That is not normal behaviour. Call Social Services. From personal experience I know you will regret it forever should anything happen and you didn't intervene. A child is at risk. Maybe not from your father but potentially from the next older father figure she attracts.

[TDada]

Why not play along and join them. Ask to come along and get to know this girl

[BeyondTheLimitsOfAcceptability]

I wonder if it might be easiest (i may be way off here!) to admit to calling cs. Word it to your dad as you calling them about her home situation and you are worried that she has attached inappropriately to him because of it, and you dont want him to get in trouble?

(I am not victim blaming, i know it is the dads fault entirely, im just thinking it will be easier for gramp to fudge the truth to her dad rather than outright lie)

[Gramparsons]

Hello, sorry for lack of update, have had an awful lot of stuff going on at the moment.

I haven't heard anything yet. My dad hasn't been back through and has been busy with his grandchildren and meeting friends. I am just feeling so guilty at what I have done at the moment, he is helping me through a hard time at the moment while running my nephews round and buying their new uniforms and sports kits. I know it was the right thing, I am telling myself I am protecting him as much as anything but I am ashamed at the moment.

Somebody up thread mentioned whether the girl has a social life and yes she has a wide circle of friends.

[womblesofwestminster]

Any news?

[Vivacia]

FGS.

[Lifeisforlivingkatie]

Call child protection and put a stop to this it is the very least you can do, it will stop an end to this and educate the old fool.

[Vacillating]

Sorry op didn't see that the discussion has moved on-hope it works out ok.

[Vacillating]

You want to end it and are happy to take the consequences if it turns out he is guilty of anything more than being made to feel important by a needy teen?

Call SS and make an anonymous report of inappropriate attention query grooming. It will end it, one way or another and it would also be the right thing to do.

[KristinaM]

Advice from the parents protect project about online grooming

www.parentsprotect.co.uk/online_grooming.htm

[KristinaM]

Booklet form the home office on keeping your child safe

www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/97898/a5-booklet.pdf

[KristinaM]

I have worked for childline . It's primarily a service for children but they will offer one off advice to an adult worried about the safety of a child.

This is because there are other telephone advice services and websites for adults .

I'm assuming that if the OP had phoned childline she woudl have given more details than she can here on the internet . And the counsellor woudl be able to ask questions and clarify matters . But based on what the OP has said here, woudl probably encourage her to do exactly what she has done -to pass the matter on to the appropriate authorities .

Very few posters have accused him of being an abuser. But may have said that his behaviour raises red flags .

Discussing it on an anonymous basis will not ruin his life. Failing to stop abuse of a young girl may well ruin her life

No one has assumed that any " older younger " friendship must be suspect . But many aspects of this one are .

However if the Op , her family and the the vast majority of posters here are wrong, and this is perfectly innocent and in the best interests of the child, I'm sure that SS will investigate and take no action.

[Meerka]

hmm I can see a lot of those, fives, yeah. Also he's behaving awfully to his wife. For those reasons agreed that it's a bad idea.

Guess I'm just shocked and tbh horrified at the number of people who are jumping to the conclusion he's a paedophile as if it's a given fact.

That's a very serious accusation to make and it might be wrong. But simply making the accusation can ruin this man's life. Now he's put himself right in the firing line and being very foolish. But I'm not sure that the response from other people is proportionate to his offence of foolishness .... (assuming that he is only foolish, and not actually a vile and actually rather stupid paedophile).

There's a lot of people on here jumped immediately to the conclusion he's a bad un without stopping to think of other explanations and the OP herself thinks its probably innocent. They've automatically assumed any and all older-younger friendships have wrong motives.

Labelling people paedophiles just off the bat is extremely dangerous to that man's life. Getting Social Services involved, if people irl find out about it, could be enough to ruin his life becuase of the knee-jerk reaction that if he's been investigated he must be guilty. Now it may have been the necessary thign to do (personally I think Childline would have been a better neutral first option, and take their advice, because of the reaction of other people; but quite possibly they'd have advised SS. It would have just been a more neutral and not so heavy first option).

But I'm not at all sure that people have considered the effect on him and those around him if he's innocent. I'm not sure they've even read all the OP's posts before they're stating as if fact that he's grooming her. That's a very serious thing to do.