TRUE STORIES
One of My College Friends Ended Up Becoming a Convicted Sex Offender
He’s gone to prison three times over the last 10 years
Never in a million years did I think something like this would happen.
I never thought that somebody I went to school with would do something so bad. But looking back, there were signs. 20/20 hindsight, hey?
I’ve changed his name here.
A problem child
I first knew Ian at primary school. He arrived there about aged 9 or 10. I think he’d come from a special school for children with behavioural problems. Maybe they thought his behaviour would improve if he mixed with “normal” children?
I remember him being hyperactive, with no sense of personal boundaries. An extra member of staff was brought in at lunchtime to try to keep him under control. I remember her screaming at him as he ran around chasing the other kids.
After about a year, he disappeared.
Then a couple of years later, aged 13, he turned up at my secondary school. The problem was, now he had testosterone flowing through his body. He had a sex drive. But unfortunately, he still had no sense of personal boundaries.
I remember him chasing girls around the school. But he didn’t only chase them. He would catch them and grab hold of them, like a complete maniac.
Yeah, he didn’t last long at that school either.
Our brief friendship
Years later, he turned up at my college, aged about 19. I have no idea what he was studying there.
I had no particular intention of having anything to do with him. But then one day he randomly started chatting to me at the bus station while we waited for the bus home.
It turned out he was into making electronic music like I was at the time. We bonded over that, and a short-lived and strange friendship developed. I would go around his house to play around on his keyboards and stuff.
But as time went on, I noticed how irritating he was. I remember him constantly doing impressions of Beavis and Butthead on the bus. He was annoyingly hyperactive a lot of the time.
I started to distance myself from him. But then there was one incident that made me want to never have anything to do with him again.
The shocking incident on the bus
We were on the bus on the way home from college. I wasn’t sitting next to him. I wasn’t particularly having anything to do with him.
For some reason, he got into a heated argument with a 13-year-old schoolgirl. Keep in mind, he was 20-years-old by this point.
I remember him kneeling upon his seat, facing backwards, staring her in the face as he annoyed the shit out of her. He was bringing it all on himself.
At one point, she said to him, “So you’re a 20-year-old man arguing with a 13-year-old girl?”
At any point, he could have backed down and left it alone. But nope, he kept winding her up.
Eventually, she got so annoyed with him that she slapped him around the face. And he instantly slapped her back!
😲
In hindsight, I wish I’d punched the crap out of him right there. Why didn’t I? Perhaps because I realised how much of a lunatic he was. And he was probably stronger than me too.
But I wish I’d done something. He shouldn’t have gotten away with that.
13 years later
I tried to forget all about Ian and got on with my own life.
Then one day, he appeared in our local newspaper. At age 33, he’d been convicted of being sexually involved with underage girls.
He got sent to prison.
A few years later he got released. Then he got sent to prison again. Then released again, then sent to prison again.
Three times he’s been to prison in the past ten years. I think he’s soon to be released.
If he ever comes near me, there’s one response he’ll get — my middle finger.
I’m ashamed I ever had anything to do with him…