An American's introduction
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Hello all! I am a 56-year-old woman (never married, no kids) who lives in the US with my mother (83, recently diagnosed with dementia) and my younger brother (47, a musician and luthier by trade). I found out about the Lucy Faithfull Foundation from an article in Unherd.
On Friday, February 17, the local police and Homeland Security came before 6:30 AM with a search warrant. They spent over four hours at our house and took my brother's computer and phone. Finally, the police arrested my brother (who was not given any time to put on shoes). He spent President's Day weekend in the local jail till Mom got a bail bondsman who could bail my brother out. (Total bail was $100,000: bail bondsmen are paid 10% of the bond, and since we did not have $10,000 right away, Mom paid $1700 and put the rest on a monthly installment plan.) Since my mother is completely bedbound and I never learned to drive, my brother had to walk home two miles from the jail without shoes (at least he had socks on and it had not yet begun to rain).
My brother is furious at the cops, as might be expected. The detective on my brother's case told Mom and me that my brother confessed to possession of child sexual abuse material. After he got out of jail on the evening of Monday, February 20, my brother told us he did not do it, and plans to plead not guilty at his arraignment in May. (Police officers are known to finagle false confessions out of suspects, after all — and the police department in our town is rumored to be extremely corrupt. Also, my brother hints at a possible political motivation for the charge: he is openly anti-Trump in a town with some sympathies for Trump.)
My brother's temper is up in general, but at least he can take me to my doctor's appointments, to my weekly psychotherapy appointments (I have a long history of depression, dysthymia, and PTSD: also, my late father molested me when I was 17 years old), and to church. (I had to use an Uber to get to and from my previously scheduled therapy appointment on Friday, February 17.) Mom was very anxious and weepy, but is somewhat better now that my brother is back home. I was too stunned to cry. Although I have been writing a novel and I do some occasional freelance writing, I could not write much outside of brief daily diary entries. Reading (except for devotional reading and very light reading) and critiquing the work of other writers has been almost beyond me, but I think I am getting better.I don't know the extent of the child sexual abuse materials my brother might have seen, how much of the material he saw, whether the exploited children were male or female, or how old they were. My guess — and it is just a guess — is that my brother might have groomed a mature-looking teenage girl online and told her to sext him, and that she might have misled him about her age. Nevertheless, what my brother confessed to the police and Homeland Security is wrong, very wrong, and stupid as well. (My other brother is in jail on the accusation of trying to smuggle some 25 pounds of meth from Mexico into the US — a drug courier, in other words.)
I don't know what to believe. I hope it was a false confession. My mother and I rely a lot on my brother. Since he is the only one in the household who can drive, he does the grocery shopping. He also pays the bills and talks to my mother's healthcare providers. (I keep my mother company and change her diapers.) If my brother did more than ask a teenage girl to sext him, it would shock me to the core. It would be so uncharacteristic of him: he has been quite a clean-cut person. I don't know what to think about him anymore.
On Friday, February 17, the local police and Homeland Security came before 6:30 AM with a search warrant. They spent over four hours at our house and took my brother's computer and phone. Finally, the police arrested my brother (who was not given any time to put on shoes). He spent President's Day weekend in the local jail till Mom got a bail bondsman who could bail my brother out. (Total bail was $100,000: bail bondsmen are paid 10% of the bond, and since we did not have $10,000 right away, Mom paid $1700 and put the rest on a monthly installment plan.) Since my mother is completely bedbound and I never learned to drive, my brother had to walk home two miles from the jail without shoes (at least he had socks on and it had not yet begun to rain).
My brother is furious at the cops, as might be expected. The detective on my brother's case told Mom and me that my brother confessed to possession of child sexual abuse material. After he got out of jail on the evening of Monday, February 20, my brother told us he did not do it, and plans to plead not guilty at his arraignment in May. (Police officers are known to finagle false confessions out of suspects, after all — and the police department in our town is rumored to be extremely corrupt. Also, my brother hints at a possible political motivation for the charge: he is openly anti-Trump in a town with some sympathies for Trump.)
My brother's temper is up in general, but at least he can take me to my doctor's appointments, to my weekly psychotherapy appointments (I have a long history of depression, dysthymia, and PTSD: also, my late father molested me when I was 17 years old), and to church. (I had to use an Uber to get to and from my previously scheduled therapy appointment on Friday, February 17.) Mom was very anxious and weepy, but is somewhat better now that my brother is back home. I was too stunned to cry. Although I have been writing a novel and I do some occasional freelance writing, I could not write much outside of brief daily diary entries. Reading (except for devotional reading and very light reading) and critiquing the work of other writers has been almost beyond me, but I think I am getting better.I don't know the extent of the child sexual abuse materials my brother might have seen, how much of the material he saw, whether the exploited children were male or female, or how old they were. My guess — and it is just a guess — is that my brother might have groomed a mature-looking teenage girl online and told her to sext him, and that she might have misled him about her age. Nevertheless, what my brother confessed to the police and Homeland Security is wrong, very wrong, and stupid as well. (My other brother is in jail on the accusation of trying to smuggle some 25 pounds of meth from Mexico into the US — a drug courier, in other words.)
I don't know what to believe. I hope it was a false confession. My mother and I rely a lot on my brother. Since he is the only one in the household who can drive, he does the grocery shopping. He also pays the bills and talks to my mother's healthcare providers. (I keep my mother company and change her diapers.) If my brother did more than ask a teenage girl to sext him, it would shock me to the core. It would be so uncharacteristic of him: he has been quite a clean-cut person. I don't know what to think about him anymore.
Hi Leonie Elisabeth, welcome to the forum and I am sorry you find yourself here. I am shocked that your brother had to walk home without shoes on - this definitely wouldn't happen in the UK. My husband was driven home in a police car after his arrest. They wouldn't allow him to travel by himself for safeguarding reasons.
I can't comment on the specifics of this case and the way the American police works. All I know that in the UK they act on intelligence when they do a search warrant for indecent images of children. This means that they have information that indecent images were accessed at a certain property and they have to find physical evidence on the devices to secure a conviction.
I can only advise you to keep an open mind about the investigation. In the majority of cases unfortunately the police is right that indecent images were accessed.
Now that doesn't mean that your brother is a horrible person. You can still love him and see the good in him. And not everyone who looks at this sort of material is a pedophile or a monster. Some were lead down this path due to porn addiction and sometimes images can be downloaded unintentionally.
I wish you all the best and keep posting on this forum - it is a great place of support
I can't comment on the specifics of this case and the way the American police works. All I know that in the UK they act on intelligence when they do a search warrant for indecent images of children. This means that they have information that indecent images were accessed at a certain property and they have to find physical evidence on the devices to secure a conviction.
I can only advise you to keep an open mind about the investigation. In the majority of cases unfortunately the police is right that indecent images were accessed.
Now that doesn't mean that your brother is a horrible person. You can still love him and see the good in him. And not everyone who looks at this sort of material is a pedophile or a monster. Some were lead down this path due to porn addiction and sometimes images can be downloaded unintentionally.
I wish you all the best and keep posting on this forum - it is a great place of support
hpl111, thank you for your understanding reply. Yes, I am also shocked that the local police did not drive my brother home after he was released on bail, and I am glad that it is different in the UK. It makes sense that the police drive people released from jail back to their homes, if only for safeguarding reasons. (Part of me wants to reply that one would not expect the police in my town — or in the US in general — to be sensible, but that is an exaggeration.)
If my brother is convicted and must go to prison, then I don't know how my mother and I will cope. My mother would probably have to enter a nursing home unit for people with dementia, which she does not want. I would probably end up homeless since my monthly SSI (Supplemental Security Income, for low-income people with disabilities) payments would not suffice for rent (much less the mortgage on the family home), and the Social Security Administration prohibits single people on SSI from having more than $2000 in savings. I have applied in the past for social housing, but the waiting lists are years long and are frequently culled. Perhaps I should wait to worry about that if my brother indeed has to go to prison, but I get anxious easily. I am a middle-aged woman in not the best physical or mental health, unused to life on the streets. Perhaps, if my brother is convicted, the legal system would sentence my brother to probation/parole (I have trouble differentiating the two) and put him on the roster of sexual offenders. Of course, that would be bad, but at least he could remain at home.
And of course, I must think of the children whose sexual abuse was recorded and put online for people to see. Since my father sexually molested me when I was still a minor, that hits home for me despite all my worrying about my brother and how the consequences of the actions he is accused of doing might destroy the tenuous balance in my life. If my brother did it, I can't imagine him being so stupid! He is a clever person. Perhaps my late father molested my brother as well as myself. (My mother once mentioned in passing that a priest had molested my father at the Catholic boarding school my father attended as a boy.)
I will stop for now. Many thanks again.
If my brother is convicted and must go to prison, then I don't know how my mother and I will cope. My mother would probably have to enter a nursing home unit for people with dementia, which she does not want. I would probably end up homeless since my monthly SSI (Supplemental Security Income, for low-income people with disabilities) payments would not suffice for rent (much less the mortgage on the family home), and the Social Security Administration prohibits single people on SSI from having more than $2000 in savings. I have applied in the past for social housing, but the waiting lists are years long and are frequently culled. Perhaps I should wait to worry about that if my brother indeed has to go to prison, but I get anxious easily. I am a middle-aged woman in not the best physical or mental health, unused to life on the streets. Perhaps, if my brother is convicted, the legal system would sentence my brother to probation/parole (I have trouble differentiating the two) and put him on the roster of sexual offenders. Of course, that would be bad, but at least he could remain at home.
And of course, I must think of the children whose sexual abuse was recorded and put online for people to see. Since my father sexually molested me when I was still a minor, that hits home for me despite all my worrying about my brother and how the consequences of the actions he is accused of doing might destroy the tenuous balance in my life. If my brother did it, I can't imagine him being so stupid! He is a clever person. Perhaps my late father molested my brother as well as myself. (My mother once mentioned in passing that a priest had molested my father at the Catholic boarding school my father attended as a boy.)
I will stop for now. Many thanks again.