FIL is a paedophile

[Choccybaby]

No easy way to say this and I've being thinking of posting for a while. My FIL was convicted recently of looking at indecent pictures of children. We've had limited contact since (unsurprisingly).
MIL who is too nice still lives with him (we did offer she could live with us but she declined)
We now rarely see them and usually only MIL but I feel guilty - FIL probably had undiagnosed Aspergers, but I still can't forgive him for all the hassle he's caused ( meetings with social workers and police etc) and he seems to want to brush it under the carpet ...

Ragwort
"But how would any of us feel if our grown up DS turned out to be a peadophile? Would we immediately become no contact with our own child?

This happened to a friend of mine, her DS was sent to prison, society (understandly) disowned him - should she too have disowned him?

I don't know the 'right' answer but perhaps it's something we should all think about."

"Padeophile" covers a lot of ground. If I somehow came to the knowledge that my son was sexually attracted to children, but they had not acted on it in anyway, well, I might look on it as not being his fault. Might even feel some sympathy for being saddled with it.

If they have indeed done "something" it still might depend on what it is in terms of whether I would disown them. If they have looked at material but it is in a "victimless crime" sort of way where there is no casual link to a child being harmed, I might see this differently than say if they were financially incentivising people to produce the material. Or were committing contact abuse themselves.

This is all in theory of course. Maybe in practise I might find I am so disgusted by it all that none of these distinctions make a difference in terms of NC. Hope I never find out, naturally.

images of child abuse are never a "victimless" crime

every click perpetuates them....somewhere at the end of the line is a financial incentive, there are always people willing to exploit the weakness of others

and always those to excuse them

wow victimless crime !!! Only when your own children are questioned as to whether they have had inappropriate photos taken of them and laying awake wondering if there are any being distributed all over the world would the enormity and reality of these images hit home. That's what happened with my children. These children have been abused and exploited for whoever is looking sexual gratification.

"every click perpetuates them....somewhere at the end of the line is a financial incentive"

Not necessarily. Plus it doesn't even have to involve the internet. As a theoretical scenario a person could find a lost briefcase, or a shoebox in a deceases relative's home, that contains illegal material. There is nothing overtly in the act of this or deciding to keep the material that casually links to some child, somewhere being harmed.

Yes I know these are a made-up scenarios but I am dealing with if...then... cases in setting out how I might respond in the circumstances posed. If...IF...this was the case I MIGHT view things differently than I might the purchasing from a criminal ring or contact crimes. Or then again I might not.

japab I am a little lost with your theoretical scenario. I am also struggling to understand why anyone finding a briefcase or clearing a house would want to hold onto such disgusting images unless they themselves used them for their own perverted gratification. These are still real children and people

To compare, maybe not the best comparison but to in some ways highlight people are victims even if they are only on images, something I heard on the news today. Lots of womens emails have been hacked and their private, naked, sexually explicit images have been sold and distributed on the internet. These were probably consented images by adults. Of course these women are victims. The children in images are being abused.

There's people tying themselves in ultra-liberal knots on this thread trying to 'understand' paedophiles

Looking at photos of children being abused by someone else is no different to sitting in the room watching children being abused by someone else live in front of you. You are deliberately witnessing and encouraging what is happening, for your own gratification. So no, not 'victimless'. Even if it's free of charge.

forumdonkey
"japab I am a little lost with your theoretical scenario. I am also struggling to understand why anyone finding a briefcase or clearing a house would want to hold onto such disgusting images unless they themselves used them for their own perverted gratification."

Sorry if I wasn't clear. I was responding to a hypothetical scenario set by Ragwort as to how we would react if we discovered our son was a paedophile. I pointed out that that could cover several things and gave my response to each of them. Yes, in this scenario the son has the material for sexual pleasure purposes. Yes this is an awful thought. I say now, while this is just theoretical to me, that I might be more willing to not disown and NC him IF his crimes were more in the realm of "thought crime". While acknowledging that I might think differently if I ever find myself in that situation, which I hope I never do.

I'd still like to think that no matter what, IF it was the case that he had these inclinations in orientation only, and had never done anything, I would feel sympathy rather than pure revulsion. While acknowledging again, that I cannot know this at this point.

Gosh What a lot of mental gymnastics on this thread to sidestep over the fact that men who get off on sexual torture of children should realistically have no contact with children. That is of course if they didn't jump, trip over and find themselves in a ditch where these images fell into their pockets by accident. Or of course while they were browsing for gardening supplies and clicked the wrong link. Jesus.

I have been in social work for 20'years and have worked with all sorts of people, however I am first and foremost a mother, I would never let my child knowingly near a convicted paedeophile, whether they were family or not

Stringent risk assessments are used all the time but we cannot accurately predict future behavior. It is not our job as parents to protect the risk it is our job to protect our children from the risk

Some of you, at some point, may find that your own sons (maybe daughters) commit sexual offences...I wonder if you will then think more broadly on the subject. I grew up with a wonderful brother. Quite a bit older than me, I loved the bones of him. Slept in his bed when he was away, wore his battered jacket whenever he would take it off.

Years later, as an adult, before I even had kids I found out he was a paedophile. Sexual Abuse of his children & their friends.

He was convicted. I haven't seen him since.

I loved him SO fucking much. I detest what he has done, I fucking detest him. After MUCH soul searching & hearing how my siblings had to ask their children if ever he touched them, and thinking 'more broadly on the subject' no, it doesn't change my mind, because he damaged children, defenceless, scared children.

So don't dare try & tell me that I haven't thought broadly enough about the subject, because you have NO idea what people on here have been through.

Your statement was at best, ignorant.

JAPAB Victimless crime? Wow...children in these images are being raped, sexually touched, sexually posed, and you think that is victimless?

Somebody once said on MN (I can't find the thread, despite looking for a number of days) that the viewers sometimes got stiffer sentences than the people who took/made the photos because they were creating a market for it, keeping it going, making sure other children were abused for their pleasure.

It is NEVER victimless.. if someone stumbled upon those photos in someone home, there is STILL a victim.

So if your son found a briefcase full of indecent images, looked in the case to find details of the owner & saw a photo like you describe, immediately handed that briefcase to police, then he is NOT a paedophile. If however he continued to looked, kept those photos, got his sexual 'kicks' from them, he is.

No one is an accidental paedophile, which is why your scenarios don't work.

JAPAB

I am stunned and speechless that anyone would call looking at photographs of abused children a 'victimless crime'. It's not a picture, you know! It's a photograph with real children in it. They are victims. In one sense, I know what you meant but you must realise that people who view these images are engaging in behaviour that supports assaults on specific, vulnerable victims. Perhaps this isn't a great analogy, but someone started a thread recently about the new single from Rihanna, which is horrendous. The response from other posters was, 'I'm not watching it because that would only support it - but yes, it encourages violence and that is a bad thing for victims of violence.' And the people in that video were actors. These are real children who are being abused, there is an industry there and you are suggesting that viewing the images doesn't doesn't affect them!!

While we shouldn't minimise sex offenders actions, there is surely something to be learned from them. Making them into monsters is dangerous because if it's always the bogey man that commits these crimes then we are leaving ourselves open for the abusers we know.

The whole stranger danger thing.

With that said I'm not sure I could put my daughter at risk knowing someone she had contact with was a child sex offender.

Mide I don't understand your post at all. Are you saying that children should be brought up with access to sex offenders because it will teach them to be cautious of people they know? If so, how strange.

The people viewing the pictures are fuelling the market with their demand for images. I've been told by a policeman I know that there is evidence that children are being abused to order, to create these images, because there's such an enormous amount of money involved. And that many of the people involved are not paedophiles themselves, they are simply after the money.

I don't agree that this can ever be a victimless crime.

No I'm saying that we should try and increase our knowledge as much as possible because then we can combat things.

If we turn all paedophiles into monsters then we are reaching our kids that it won't happen with a nice uncle or sports coach ( or whoever).

Teaching not reaching

This thread has made my head hurt.

There has been way too much said for me to comment on everything I would like to.

I am one of those children who has and still does lay awake at night wondering where those images of me are now. Who is looking at them? What are they doing with them? And with every minute of sleep I lose thinking if that,I am a victim all over again.

Of course it's not a victimless crime. Ever.

I don't know what the answer is.

I find the 'Daily Mail hysteria' comments very offensive and ignorant. Of course there isn't a paedophile on every street corner. That's because they are in the homes of families. My abuser was a family member. Everybody I know who has suffered sexual abuse, who subjected to it by a relative/or close family friend.

This pissed me off - FIL is likely to be experiencing all kinds of emotions and may really need the support of his family - which doesn't have to compromise child safety.

Oh boo fucking hoo.

Sorry for a very badly worded post (and the typos). When it's such a sensitive and emotive and personal issue, I seem to lose the ability to write coherently.

I think a lot of the problems people have had with Rochelle's posts have been because people use 'paedophile' interchangeably with 'child abuser', and talk about 'convicted paedophiles' etc.

By my reading, Rochelle was trying to be more precise with her language - not all child abusers are paedophiles, and not all paedophiles abuse children; being a paedophile is not a criminal offence (as you can't see what people are thinking), and the actual criminal offences relate to child abuse, such as perpetrating the abuse or viewing images of the abuse.

The people who asked why someone who was not a paedophile would want to look at images of child abuse, there are, for example, people who just like looking at abuse and don't care if it is adults, children or animals. It does not make this any less harmful.

Saying someone who is a child abuser may not be a paedophile is not minimising the abuse - the abuse took place anyway, the abuse was the crime, the abuse was what harmed the child.

However, in many ways this discussion would probably be more suitable for Pedants' Corner than Relationships, as it does not really help the OP resolve her problems with her family member.

IMO, NC is the way. My brother is an abuser, and I have not been in the same room as him for many years. If I am speaking to another family member on the phone and he is with them, I end the call. I stop my mother if she starts telling me about him. I don't want to know - he is dead to me (although, unfortunately, not actually dead).

Thank you badtime, for articulating my thoughts on this yesterday, that I was too knackered/distracted to write down! Agree with all you say.

Ultimately, the wider discussion is for somewhere else.

What struck me about the op was that there seems to be denial/shock(?)

Surely, the only sane thing here is NC.

differentnameforthis
"Somebody once said on MN (I can't find the thread, despite looking for a number of days) that the viewers sometimes got stiffer sentences than the people who took/made the photos because they were creating a market for it, keeping it going, making sure other children were abused for their pleasure.

It is NEVER victimless.. if someone stumbled upon those photos in someone home, there is STILL a victim."

Of course there is a victim, or at least when the material is of real people and is not computer generated or an animation, which also count I believe.

But if it was the case that there is something inherently within the act of looking that causally links to the creation then even the police officers who go through harddrives or search for physical photos will, if they find any and look at them, be similarly guilty. Even the person who find the briefcase and hands the photos over when they realise what they are is guilty.

Maybe it would make no difference to you what level of activity your son had engaged in, it is an all or nothing deal and you'd NC them whatever, and that is your right of course. But for me such factors as whether they were financially incentivising the material's creation, might make a difference.

There is a whole lost of fucking difference between having to look at images as part of your job as a police officer etc & people looking at them to get sexual gratification.

Police officers (or whoever has the unfortunate job of having to sight these images) will not be doing it for kicks. And of course it doesn't make them a paedophile. Same as if someone happens to open a lost briefcase looking for ID sees something.

Quite. The people involved in having to look at the evidence often develop psychological problems of their own as a consequence.

You just can't link the people who sustain trauma from using their eyes on this stuff to the people who seek it out to get off on it.

That really is mental gymnastics!