Was he or not!

[Memphis]

I remember when I was around 7 - 12 years old or there about. There was this guy who lived around the corner from my mum and dads house who was a bit weird. 40 - 50 maybe, lived with his mum. His life consisted of walking to the local shops and back and that was it. Looking back he was always inappropriate with kids, always stopping to chat, always touching. Generally it was a stroke of the face, a hand on the shoulder, never anything that you'd immediately think was sexual or clearly wrong.

Now if someone came out of the woodwork today and said that guy went way beyond what I saw with my own eyes I could easily think of 10 - 15 kids who might say actually......he was inappropriate with me too.

Now put that guy into Jimmy Savilles position. Miles can you see how 10 - 15 could easily become 150 - 200?

Paedophilia is a new thing isnt it? The label I mean. The guy I mentioned never did anything like that to me so I never had cause to talk to my parents about it, but if any of my friends did I wouldn't be surprised if the response they got was to stay away and no more. Today if my son came to me and said a grown up had touched him and he didnt want them to I'd be inside for beating them to death with one of their own limbs.

I know the excuse/reason?? that things were different back then is a flimsy one but we're looking at it through 2012 eyes. Things were different, there was no label to slap on someone that behaved like that other than weird bloke down the road. If a dozen or so kids can ignore or not quite understand that what a grown up was doing was wrong and say nothing, it could also happen to a lot more who looked up to said grown up as some kind of hero.

[Gandalf]

Good post and I agree with most of it. But watching that documentary I saw things that didn't quite gel with the narrative. Of course, people are more protective now, but for one girl to be having a several year fling with him? It doesn't add up.

It all points to him having been up to no good and I am not even trying to play devils advocates really. I only wished people got their balls together and defended their abuses as children then and in numbers, it would have gone somewhere and he have had to reflect.

Something seriously went wrong in this taking until now to come out. If police had known about it, they should have been onto him waiting for the next faux pas. And then get him.

Just all too late.