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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 .

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 .

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!

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.

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.

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 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.

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

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!

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.

I hope you can see now, GillT, that many of us have encountered someone who later turned out to have paedophile tendencies, or someone older whom we discovered later was a sex offender. In such cases it's normal to feel annoyed or even guilty at ourselves for trusting this person or not having sensed that they were more than a bit creepy. We like to think our own instincts will help to keep us and our loved ones safe, and feel tainted and uncomfortable when this proves not to be the case. Don't let this make you suspicious of other men (past or present!) or afraid to trust them. Most men are not like this, so I hope you can just let this go, and get on with your life.

With hindsight, and maturity, I can see that I was 'approached' inappropriately on at least six occasions in the 50's and 60's between the ages of about ten and sixteen. Once by a neighbour, who, when I was fourteen, suggested that I come to his house to ' be with ' his grandson in bed. I had spotted them watching me from their window previously. The other times were twice by relatives and the other occasions by strangers. Those episodes, and all the ones in the media make me wonder how many men are out there looking for opportunities. Not fair to the majority of men, I know.

And of course any man we fancied when we were young in the 70’s are not that fantasy now . Even if not looking at child pornography . They have lost that youthful hotness and are often bald and fat . I was quite upset at a recent school reunion when I saw the guy I had carried a Torch for for 45 years was not quite so fanciable now !! ? Best remember them from that d school photo ... o the pain of longing turning into dust

remember him as he was .but thats all he is a memory. he belongs in the past .push him out of your mind .blank him out .you got more important things to do. he's a sad sick sod ,you deft dont want to have anything to do with him now...

What a lot of people dont realise is that adults can be groomed too, for various reasons, sometimes a mother will be groomed so that the man can get close to the daughter/s, the mother then thinks what a lovely man and would trust her children with him, but they are clever manipulaters, and usually very charming,
Sorry you found this out about this man Gill, but you didnt know of course and only showed the part of his character he wanted you to see

As another poster who worked with children and adults who had experienced abuse, and with offenders, I agree with the posters who had similar work experience and believe we all know sex offenders. They live amongst us and look just like everyone else.
This may seem a small thing but, I dislike the term "child porn". What we're talking about are photographic or video images of small children being subjected to sexual abuse. Many of the adult women who appear in 'porn' have their own childhood experience of sexual abuse and exploitation.

men who view child porn are despicable. child has been abused or raped in every image they view. You don't access this filth by mistake.

Lets call it what it is, images of children being abused, terrified and hurt

Hellsbelles My experience too.

I was a prison visitor for a number of years in a maximum security wing. The sex offenders were isolated from the others for their own safety, so although we never asked the crime, it was clear.

They too were, as you described - an apparently ordinary cross section of society.
Of course there were massive great, tattooed, weight-lifting gang members in the wing as well but they were in for murders as well as sex crimes.
They used to write me poetry and stories about their often horrendously violent childhoods - and take the wildflowers I'd brought, back to their cells.

Sometimes I would leave that place in tears.

We were in the play park yesterday with our grandson and there was a young man in his early twenties leaning against a gate just looking at his phone. I just assumed his son/daughter was playing nearby. A bit later he went to the small swings and started doing strongman exercises on the bar. No children were attached to him.

I realised that he was there alone just watching the children. He left after about 20 mins. I strongly suspect his intentions were far from innocent. What a sad old world.