Outing a pedophile..

First of all, that’s horrible what your brother did.

My thoughts on outing him are...
...If she and her step dad both deny anything happened, how are you going to prove your accusations actually happened?

 

I am unaware of a statue of limitations concerning child abuse/molestation? People are charged with "Historical abuse" I didn't think it was the type of crime that just expires in the eyes of the law- after all- if a person has molested a child once and does not get caught chances are they will do it again.

Anyway,

I totally understand your frustrations and I can understand why you want to out him as the evil bastard he is- however, the girl in the scenario who is the victim in this, it should be her decision and hers alone if she wishes to report her abuser- it sounds like she may be in denial and forcing her into a situation where she has to confront this when she is not ready is deeply unfair and may cause her great emotional distress. Her safety is of the utmost importance. You can't force a victim to be ready to talk about something traumatic- you can only support her and be there for her when she is ready- if you force her into having to talk to police or be confronted by family members before she is ready- I can tell you from personal experience that is terrifying! Please do not put her in that position- it must be her choice! One of the biggest fears a victim has is that they won't be believed- the abuser will call her a fantasist or a liar and some family members will likely believe him.. sadly- that will be horrific for her to deal with if she isn't ready.

Regarding your step brother......

I'm not sure which country you are in, but in the UK you can report your stepbrother to the police (without mentioning the victim) you can make a statement and they can store that away- then, if he ever rapes or sexually assaults another person and that person reports him- they have your testimony as well which will add weight to the case against him.

I just checked online re the statue of limitations thing you mentioned- in the UK there is none- I assume you are in the US then maybe? They seem to have one of varying lengths for different states.

 

I think if she doesn't want anyone to know you need to respect that. Let her know you're there to support her but it's down to her what happens. Outing him may cause her even more pain. I remember this victim who was abused feeling unsatisfied because her abuser, despite being in prison, refused to apologised.

 

How about you kick his ass! Brothers do that to each other all the time.

 

Personally I have a different perspective on this... I totally understand the desire to respect the victims wishes, and I have a lot of sympathy for that, but at the same time, allowing that to be kept secret is allowing it to potentially happen again to someone else. And that, to me, is a big enough deal to override the feelings of the girl. Just think about this... If you don't say anything, and then in a few years you hear that he's abused another person, or continued to abuse the same person, how are you going to feel? I, personally, wouldn't be able to live with that.

That being said, I don't envy you this situation. I can't imagine how difficult it would be to go against her wishes, and I'm sure she would be extremely angry with you. But if it were me, I would say the protection of future potential victims is worth the fallout.

 

They will definitely want to know who the victim is. But at the same time, they can't exactly force you to tell them, as far as I know. It's even possible to give an anonymous tip, if you'd prefer. I'm sure you can look online at how to do that. But the less information they have, of course, the less likely they will be able to pursue arresting him. But that's a big enough crime that I'm sure they would take it seriously and investigate, even without you giving more information than his name.

 

If I were in your shoes, I would let her know if you are planning to report it, and how you're going to do it. Whether it's going to be an anonymous tip or if you're going to give more detailed information. It's not going to be an easy conversation, but you don't want to take her by surprise and have her feel betrayed.

Aside from that part of it, I think it would be good, if you haven't already, to simply tell her that you know about what happened and that you feel terrible about what happened to her and that you're available if she ever wants to talk about anything. That's kind and supportive and opens the door for conversation, but allows her to decide if she wants to take you up on that or not.

 

What were the ages of both people at the time?

 

When I found about the family member that molested my wife when she was a kid my initial instinct was wanting to tell everyone. I wanted the whole damned family to know so that he would be ostracized, his marriage would be ruined, he would be prosecuted, and probably get beat up by some of the other family members.

My wife begged me not to. Shes fortunate I wasn't around her family when I found out, or I would've been unable to help myself.

A few years later, the desire to reveal his dirty little secret has largely abated. I think my wife is approaching it the wrong way, she's still protecting him, she doesn't want his family to get ruined. I told her that he might still be doing it, and she acknowledges that it's possible. In the end though, it's her secret, it isn't my business to make public.

The knowledge I carry around with me, it drives home daily the depravity of mankind. The knowledge that some among the people I consider my friends and contemporaries are doing these things in their homes. It really shades my view of life. It makes me feel powerless.

Then, sometimes I think about the lives of all the females I've looked at on a screen over the years. Without the systemic abuse of girls/ young women that our society generates, they wouldn't be doing the things we like to watch them do. Although I never contributed materially to the pornography industry, I still can't help but feel as though I've contributed to this culture of abuse in my own way.

 

I know for a fact that if they do it one time they will do it again, so based on that I would not keep my mouth shut cause in the end raping children is worse then killing them cause the person they would have been dies, and what is left gets to live with it for the rest of their lives. Its easy for me to say but I feel it is the right thing to do in my hearth, if these people are still around children I would do my best to make sure they never touch a child again.

At the end of the day confronting them will show their true colors, cause most Pedophiles are super nice to people super manipulative they will get cold they know just the right words to say, to convince everyone, even their victims. My dad was molested as a child over and over again and this went on for years, people knew about it but didn't say anything cause they didn't want to break the family, he lives with pain every day now constantly thinking that people judge him for what some one else did to him, just writing about it makes me so sad and angry its fucked up that trying to keep a family together is more important than the well being of children. Nothing is worth having one of these people loose on the streets cause they will ruin lives families, they will end up effecting so many peoples lives negatively cause of their actions.

Remember the real reason why the victims don't often want others to know about it is cause of how they feel, worthless.

 

Yeah, I sometime feel like a hypocrite. I have two nephews and a niece and thought of anyone abusing them makes me sick, my ex's step father was abusive and even as grown woman she was still effected by it. She says Jesus stopped him from abusing her but I sometimes wonder if she was just in denial of what happened. IDK but what does it mean that Jesus stopped him? But having said all that sometimes I think I'm just as bad as them for looking at porn. Women became not human to me, they were just sex on legs and I'm trying to get out of that wicked mindset.

I don't understand porn's obsession with teens. Of course they claim they're legal but I don't get it, why does some producer think it's cool to have barley legal teens doing porn. I think such things encourage paedophilia. Why do older men have fantasies of being with young girls? It's so irrationally stupid! Personally I think women closer your age is so much better!

 

She's not protecting him she's protecting herself. Think about it for a moment. Let's say you tell the family. What do you think is going to happen? Do you think everyone's going to have a magical campfire moment where a lightbulb clicks on top of their heads that the person they've known for years upon years is a child molester? Nope! That's not going to happen. What will happen is the family will implode and sides will be taken up. Your wife will be called a liar by some of the family and a whole new set of wounds will be created on top of the deep ones she's already carrying in her heart.

A lot of people fail to understand that when victims of abuse disclose their situation, especially after years of keeping it hidden, that our discloser isn't happening because we want you to fix it. What we want is to be able to trust others again because that trust has been taken from us by someone we were supposed to be able to trust. You reporting these things against our desire would be to betray our trust all over again.

None of this is easy, neither for the past victim or for the one they've trusted with this information. In a way you all know how a priest now feels in the confessional or how a therapist feels during a session. You need to think about the potential harm you risk putting this person through again. Another thing is we know our abusers on a level most do not. I've watched the person that did it to me very closely and if this person ever touched another person then I would have not let it fly. Sadly though when it comes to sexual abusers having two victims reporting the same absue gives it more credibility. It's a fucked up truth, but it is the truth. If youre the only person reporting it then the potential for you to get fucked over is incredibly high, and knowing this country (USA) it could probably even result in you being sued for defamation of character by the abuser because of a lack of evidence. It's just one big shit show.

 

There are two sides to this: the moral and the legal. I see a lot of people intermixing the two. Laws vary from country-to-country and state-to-state. I'd make this simple for yourself right now and get educated on how the law says you should handle this situation. Knowing about a crime and not reporting it is one of the reasons many of us hate politicians.

If you decide to report it, be sure that you're able to make credible allegations against him. The standard for what is credible is relatively straightforward: would a group of 12 or so random citizens (the jury) feel there was enough evidence to make a conviction? If the answer to that is no, then you need to start by compiling more evidence.

 

That's all very true. But personally, if there is a risk of him harming other children, which there likely is if he thinks he got away with what he did, then all of that is worth it if he were to be put behind bars. I don't mean to be insensitive, as I know everything you said is extremely terrible and would be hell to go through. But I would rather go through all of that than have another child be sexual abused by this man. Clearly being sexually abused as a child is worse than than the things she will have to handle now, as an adult, so if it were me, I don't think I would be able to live with myself if I didn't tell the police and someone else got abused because of it.

 

Also, while things could go terribly and people could call her a liar and not support her and the police could say she doesn't have enough evidence, things could ALSO go well. Maybe her family will surround her with love and support. Maybe the guy will feel so bad about it that he will confess and go to prison. You never know what's going to happen. But even if the worst happens, if it were me, I think I would still find it to be worth it to tell, simply because I wouldn't be able to live with not doing everything in my power to protect other children from going through that same tragedy.