[Misc] Nice people you have known who you later discovered had a dark side.

[marlowe]

Whenever I now become acquainted with someone who appears really "nice" I'm immediately suspicious of them and rather accept their "niceness" for what it is I find myself wondering if they have a "dark side". I've got to know a few "nice" people in my time, some of them even "really nice", but then at some point in the future, sometimes years later, their mask slips and they reveal themselves, or are exposed, for what they really are.

Fortunately I've been lucky in my relationships and I've never experienced the psycho girlfriend or ex- girlfriend thing* but then again I wouldn't have defined any of them as "nice" anyway.

This thread is about "nice" people you know who turned out to have a "dark side".

Mine have included someone who was never a friend but with who I was well enough acquainted with to think, he seems like a "nice" bloke. Then one day I saw him in the pages of the Argus having just been convicted of being a serial child abuser.

Others have uncluded my next door neighbours, a "nice" couple, church going even, who to all outward appearances were in a close, loving relationship. Then they moved, and coincidentally I later became acquainted with the woman's sister who told me about the man's "dark side". It emerged that the couple met when the man was going out with the woman's mother and he groomed her then 13 year old daughter, ( he's about 15 years older) who eventually became his wife and who he spent the next 20 years controlling and manipulating. What I saw as a close, loving relationship was actually a controlling, domineering, emotionally abusive one. I've been told that now, in her mid fourties, the woman has finally found the courage and has left him. Of course he turned his children against her, blaming her for the breakdown of their relationship, which forced her to return to him again, but fortunately only briefly. It turned out even the church going was a sham and only done to get their children into Cardinal Newman.

Which "nice" people have you known who turned out to have a "dark side"?

Are you one of the few to see them for what they really are while everyone else continues to be taken in by their "niceness"?

 

[Taybha]

I know this bloke called Chris Hughton , when i first met him he was the complete gent , now look at him .

 

[Insel affe]

Everyone has a dark side or things in the past that they are ashamed about, obviously some are worse than others, but ultimately we all have a dark side, and anyone who says they don't is a lying psycho nut job.

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

My very best mate's lad only ever seemed like a nice quiet shy lad. And is just approaching the end of a 14 year sentence for murder. I still find it impossible to reconcile the two.

 

[Mellotron]

Jim once fixed it for me to milk a cow blindfolded. Seemed a nice fella.

 

[Dick Swiveller]

A few years ago, I flew to Italy with my dad so I could take some tools on the plane for him whilst he did a job for some billionaire guy. Basically mooched a few days holiday in Italy for my baggage allowance. There was an Irish guy there working on a generator that we went out to dinner with one night. Had a nice chat with him about the troubles of living one side of the border and working the other. Quite reminiscent of Dara O'Briain it accent and manner and seemed a good guy.

A year or so ago, my dad asked if I remember him. In his own unique over-exaggeration style, he said that this guy is now known in the press as Ireland's biggest paedophile. Not sure of the complete story but I think it had something to do with putting hidden cameras all over the place. Whilst not exactly matching my dad's description, I think he was charged with an awful lot of sexual offences so I guess that counts as a dark side!

 

[Mellotron]

I think he was charged with an awful lot of sexual offences so I guess that counts as a dark side!

Errr...yes, I think it's fair to say it does!

Now a bit concerned about your username.

 

[Gwylan]

My father's best mate was someone who always seemed to treat life lightly. He was a successful solicitor and one of those people who always seemed to have a joke to tell. I got to know him reasonably well as I used to sit with my dad and his mates at the cricket. When my dad died, he was the first person to join me at the hospital and looked after me, putting me up for the night so I didn't have to face an empty house. He also took charge of much of the organisation of the funeral as I was too shell-shocked and, naturally, took responsibility of winding up my father's estate.

It was only a few months later that I discovered that he'd pocketed my dad's money as well as about £500k from other clients, many of whom also trusted him implicitly. As it was a white collar crime, he, of course, didn't go to jug and is still working around the area. Being a rogue solicitor is bad enough but his betrayal of someone who'd been his friend for about 30 years is as low as you can get.

 

[marlowe]

Everyone has a dark side or things in the past that they are ashamed about, obviously some are worse than others, but ultimately we all have a dark side, and anyone who says they don't is a lying psycho nut job.

There are many different shades of dark and whether it manifests itself into willfully and remorselessly hurting, exploiting or abusing others. While we all have a dark side the distinction is whether we have sufficient behavioural controls, self awareness, conscience and morality which prevents us or at least restricts us from giving our dark side free reign to malevolent ends at the cost of others.

 

[Your Mum]

Your mum

 

[nwgull]

No-one specific, but anyone that describes themselves as a 'nice guy' and complains that women always go for bad-boys is usually an untrustworthy snake with dark motives behind their overt niceness.

 

[lawros left foot]

When I was working as a chef in a certain insurance firm in 1990, a Scottish bloke who worked as a kitchen porter,and myself had a jokey, semi serious, leg pulling, jokes about Scottish football and England at that summers World Cup, type banter( I hate that word).


I found out years later, he was Peter Tobin, serial killer doing a whole life sentence for 3 murders.

 

[Petunia]

My nephew was an acquaintance of Fred West. He said he always seemed a pleasant and normal chap.

 

[Springal]

Someone I knew and spent quite a lot of time with, including staying at his family home, got on with his wife and kids etc for my early 20's and was always pretty generous and well looked after including a few holidays together etc.

Lost contact a couple of years back, but saw he was sentenced this year for 8 years after being caught with £2M of heroin in his car! Apparently his wife and kids have re-located and want nothing to do with him.

 

[marlowe]

My father's best mate was someone who always seemed to treat life lightly. He was a successful solicitor and one of those people who always seemed to have a joke to tell. I got to know him reasonably well as I used to sit with my dad and his mates at the cricket. When my dad died, he was the first person to join me at the hospital and looked after me, putting me up for the night so I didn't have to face an empty house. He also took charge of much of the organisation of the funeral as I was too shell-shocked and, naturally, took responsibility of winding up my father's estate.

It was only a few months later that I discovered that he'd pocketed my dad's money as well as about £500k from other clients, many of whom also trusted him implicitly. As it was a white collar crime, he, of course, didn't go to jug and is still working around the area. Being a rogue solicitor is bad enough but his betrayal of someone who'd been his friend for about 30 years is as low as you can get.

Was there no action taken against him? Police, professional ombudsman or civil action? Did he just get away with it and keep the money? The problem is the more they get away with the more likely their behaviour is likely to continue and escalate.

Even from the small amount of what you've written about him I think he would score quite highly on this checklist which might explain a bit..
http://www.minddisorders.com/Flu-Inv/Hare-Psychopathy-Checklist.html

 

[Lenny Rider]

My mate Alan used to play Cricket in Bradford with Peter Sutcliffe's Dad in the mid/late 1960's and from his sporadic meetings in the pavilion described Sutcliffe Junior as a 'complex character'.

One of the evening guests at 1990 my wedding murdered a pensioner in Worthing the late 1990's.

But to agree with a previous poster, we all do things in our life that are dark, and almost all later regret.

 

[FatSuperman]

Well my wife seemed like a kind and rational person. But she now loads the dishwasher as if it works like a washing machine.

 

[Gwylan]

Was there no action taken against him? Police, professional ombudsman or civil action? Did he just get away with it and keep the money? The problem is the more they get away with the more likely their behaviour is likely to continue and escalate.

Even from the small amount of what you've written about him I think he would score quite highly on this checklist which might explain a bit..
http://www.minddisorders.com/Flu-Inv/Hare-Psychopathy-Checklist.html

He was struck off as a solicitor but I found out that he was still working in a legal practice as a 'consultant' - it seems that as long as he wasn't calling himself a lawyer, that was all right.

He got an 18-month suspended sentence, the copper who was liaising with us was absolutely furious that he got off so lightly. If some herbert from 'Scoom robbed a house and had it away with half a million quid's worth of goods, he wouldn't have got a suspended sentence. AFAIK, there was no attempt made to get the money back; we (eventually) got compensated by the Law Society - there's a fund specifically set up to pay compensation for dodgy solicitors.

 

[juliant]

The vicar of the church my mum made me go to and who confirmed me at the age of 15 . Hes now done time for the usual things that Vicars did. Would never of guessed it at the time

 

[Insel affe]

My father's best mate was someone who always seemed to treat life lightly. He was a successful solicitor and one of those people who always seemed to have a joke to tell. I got to know him reasonably well as I used to sit with my dad and his mates at the cricket. When my dad died, he was the first person to join me at the hospital and looked after me, putting me up for the night so I didn't have to face an empty house. He also took charge of much of the organisation of the funeral as I was too shell-shocked and, naturally, took responsibility of winding up my father's estate.

It was only a few months later that I discovered that he'd pocketed my dad's money as well as about £500k from other clients, many of whom also trusted him implicitly. As it was a white collar crime, he, of course, didn't go to jug and is still working around the area. Being a rogue solicitor is bad enough but his betrayal of someone who'd been his friend for about 30 years is as low as you can get.

That is awful, please tell me you got the your money back.