just found out something awful about someone I knew many years ago

I discovered a man I dated while my daughter was young has been convicted of grooming an underage girl. I was shocked, felt sick. The girl was not as young as my daughter had been when we met, and he had NO unaccompanied time with her whatsoever, so I don't have to worry about that.
Just disgusting really.
Another man who moved in our circle as teenagers was caught by a vigilante gang trying to pick up a young teenage boy. He had a weapon on him.....
Nothing surprises me anymore.

Oh and FWIW I also know someone who worked in child services and said that the vigilante groups that go after paedophiles are well known paediphiles themselves who use it to destract from themselves or promote their "pillar of the community" status and make it harder for their victims to be believed...

.... so dont assume that others "do more" if they cross paths with a not yet charged paedophile!

A friend of mine works in housing services and says that there are paedophiles housed on pretty much every street.

Everyone knows paedophiles, we just dont all know it yet. So dont beat yourself up for not "knowing". Nobody really knows their aquaintances until it "comes out"

People who do bad things are often likable and charming, not cartoonish "weirdos"

Same applies to murderers, domestic abusers etc... we all know em we just dont know we know em! Until we do. So let yourself off the hook x

I can empathise completely. My first husband left me for someone else thirty years ago and went to live with his new woman and her 7 year old daughter. I found out 3 years ago that he raped the daughter, then recently did the same to his latest lover’s daughter. I’m happy to say he’s been locked up for a long time, and I’d stopped caring about him 30 years ago as he is so vile. But my first reaction when I heard was guilt, which is ridiculous. I think I felt I should have known and stopped him. But I had no idea, although when I heard I realised I wasn’t enormously surprised. Be kind to yourself and allow yourself to feel what you feel for a while, then you’ll be able to move on.

My adult son’s A level music teacher has this week been sentenced to 2 years in prison for viewing child porn. My son was really upset as he had been an inspirational teacher who they all loved. This man has completely ruined his life by viewing images which have ruined children’s lives

I am lucky that I did not have any kind of physical relationship with the man in question, but I think everyone's sad stories show that even those who are professionally involved with children have found out awful things about people they liked and trusted. In a way, this has helped the older me forgive the young daft me for not realising what he was like. Did I even know what child porn was when I was 15? Probably not but just aware of men who were a bit 'weird' and he was not in that category. Thank you everyone again for sharing your stories and making me feel better.

I've lived in my house for twenty years, I live on a very quiet unlit country road. I often used to see someone walking past late at night, sometimes I would drive past him on my way home. One day I was in our garden and he was passing, and I asked if he'd like a lift next time I saw him. He told me that he worked night shifts, and was walking home from the bus which stopped in the village. I picked him up now and again over fifteen years , and one day was passing him waiting for the bus with his cat in a basket, and took him to the vets.

He was divorced, but when I opened the village youth club, he used to bring his two daughters along if he had them that weekend. My daughter was in the same year as one of his daughters, she is now 23.

A year after my husband died, in 2017, a group of people called 'Dark Justice' caught him at the place he thought he was meeting a 12 year old girl. They also posted erotic photos that he had sent this girl. The police were informed and apparently his home computer was full of child porn. He disappeared from his house, and his neighbour was asked to take his cat.

I never left my children alone when at home, but it still frightens me to think that my daughter could have been one of his victims.

Is it the connection with child pornography or the fact that he was a crush of yours and hasn't aged well that bothers you?
If it's the first, my skin would truly be creeping, but it is surely easy to forget all about it and just think that you had a good escape!

A shock for me was finding a work colleague I thought very highly of and occasionally having a drink with was into porn on line .Won't go into detail but very upsetting as he was the last person I would have thought was into that kind of 'thing'. You never can tell .

I used to work in a prison with sex offenders. This is a sweeping statement and hard to say but sadly the majority of us will know ( be it neighbour, work colleague, family, friend , etc ) will know a person who has paedophile tendencies .They are not the creepy, weird , odd looking person moving about in the shadows. It was a male prison and they were fathers,brothers,sons, policemen,teachers,vicars,sport centre workers, et al .

What can we do about it? Should we be suspicious of everyone we meet? Won't that make us very unhappy?

I dislike telling children to be wary of 'strangers' because so often it isn't a stranger and young children may think it is someone who looks strange. I think it would be better to tell them that if anyone says something should be a secret they should tell a teacher and a parent. Also of course not to speak to people they don't know if out on their own.

Your feelings are perfectly understandable and actually quite common.

When someone we know (and liked in most cases) commits a crime, particularly a horrible one, psychologically we too have been betrayed. Then being human we feel we should have been more perceptive and seen through them. How could I have liked such a terrible person?

It's akin to the way people feel when someone commits suicide. We think could I have done something to prevent it? even though we know for sure we could not.

That children were involved, in this case makes it so much worse. In addition to being outraged, we feel so helpless and powerless to stop such evil.

Absolutely understand how you feel, it might help to talk to a counsellor if you feel you need help to get over the feelings you have now. Don't be hard on yourself, and give it time for your feelings to settle down. Good luck.

I taught young children for many years and it was extremely difficult to get other people, parents and professionals, to accept what children disclosed or to act on warning signs.

The immediate reaction was almost always “I can’t believe that. X is such a nice person’ or ‘But we have known them for years,”

People looked for other reasons, The child must have seen something on television, it was all down to playground talk, they just didn’t like the new partner.

It’s sonething that people’s minds shy away from.

They hide in plain sight, sadly. Often known to the family too, a friend, an uncle, a tutor.
?

When I was involved in sport, and was regional Welfare Officer, I used to deliver Child Protection courses to coaches and also train up Club Child Protection Officers. One, very well qualified coach/teacher had me down to his club to run these courses, and I can always hear his voice in my head saying how glad he was that this had been brought in and it should have been done years earlier. Great coach - did wonders for many under-priviledged children......I actually told one of my own children (training in Sports development) to 'sit at his feet and learn'!
Then, a few years later, I had to stop my car on the hard shoulder, as I heard on the local news that this 'wonderful' man, had been convicted of grooming, etc. of his own club members. I was actually sobbing and felt so 'used'. How did I not see through him?, and could I have done more to protect those young girls? It was like someone had kicked me very hard in the stomach.

Are not ate

Having worked with paedophiles and non protecting mothers in the past, these men do not have two heads and look just like anyone else, that is why they get away with it. They are masters at being manipulative and grooming is a skill . Don’t worry that you were taken in so ate most people. When I was working in that area me and my colleague felt we developed a sixth sense in spotting them

Having worked so long with survivors I know only too well that most paedophiles are seemingly ordinary every day people and I m afraid I would never be shocked to hear if anyone I knew (apart from knowing someone very well ) had that within them We ALL know a paedophile we just don’t know we know them There are two men who were living near me one who makes me sick to the core a professional man a university lecturer who was given custody of his daughter he is now serving a sentence, another younger man, single, arrogant and very full of his good acts in his church, a regular church goer who is now thankfully serving his third term inside my third encounter was the grandkids priest at their school he was round, jolly, and the kids went to him with their problems until he disappeared then suddenly appeared in the newspaper for historical abuse

Everyone knows a paedophile Gil please throw your memory out with the shower water he was not what you thought or knew

One day, a few years ago, my husband said ‘did you know Mr A when you were teaching ...’. I said yes, he bullied both the staff and pupils. ‘ That’s just what it says in The Times’ he said. Mr A was about to be sentenced to 17 years for molesting pupils at the school where I taught, while I was there. I immediately threw up and still feel sick when I think about it. I honestly had no idea this was going on and, worse still, with hindsight, I think one of his victims was in my form. I can only hope and pray that he has managed to build a life for himself. I knew he wasn’t happy at the school and in year 11 I told his parents to move him to a 6th form college which they did.

I can go back to the late 70’s, my two daughters went every week to the church youth club, the priest and his wife were close friends and when a new priest came here we were all friends, the married couple moved to a new parish and the priest carried on with the club. Two years later he moved to a new parish (the youth club was held in the clergy house )

Some years later he was charged with sexual abuse on boys,
I was so mixed up, upset because I liked and trusted him, relief it hadn’t been little girls which caused such guilt.

I think you are right sodapop, we are inclined to think these repellent crimes are committed by "others" not by people we like, people "like us".

This must be relatively common, we have just been reading about a court case involving a paedophile and suddenly realised that it was a friend of our DD1 who she was at school with 35 years ago. Along with her other friends he was often in and out of our house. She hadn't seen or heard of him for years but has now had a lot of old schoolfriends contacting her regarding the case.

I think it shakes your confidence in your own judgement. I knew and very much liked a man, but years later found out some very unsavoury things about him. (Absolutely certain about these).

I still can't believe how I was taken in by him. And for many years, whenever meeting people I kept saying to myself "is this person really who they say they are?", and that is a horrible way to have to be.

It's strange isn't it how we always think its 'someone else' and would not be anyone we know. It's very hard to comprehend when we know the person concerned.
Callistemon is right we should all be mindful of the things we share on the internet.