Mom Stabs Man Who Groomed & Abused Her Son — Her Kids Thanked Her For Making Them Feel 'Safer'
She only wanted him to confess.
BBC News/YouTube There is nothing most mothers would not do to protect their children from the evil and horrors of the world.
Such is the case with Sarah Sands, a mother of five children in the United Kingdom. She had no idea that the elderly neighbor was a danger to the community.
When she found out that Michael Pleasted sexually abused her 12-year-old son, Bradley, she took matters into her own hands.
The mom stabbed her sons' abuser but wants her story to lead to a change in the law.
In 2015, Sands discovered that her 77-year-old neighbor was abusing her son. He lived in a council flat across the street from her home overlooking a playground and school.
According to Sands, she sought help from the police and social services, but was ignored.
It turns out that her children were not the only victims of Pleasted. He had a long history of abusing children and had changed his name from Robin Moult to cover it up.
In addition to the name change, Pleasted was able to conceal his past because his sick crimes predated the national sex offender registry.
In his 2015 trial, it came out that he had been convicted of sexual abuse 24 times in three decades.
Pleasted had been grooming her son.
The relationship between Sands, her children, and Pleasted started innocently enough in 2014 with him offering Bradley a job in a shop he volunteered for.
She had no reason not to trust him. According to her, “Mick was a role model. I’d take him meals and we’d chat. I had no reason not to trust him. I thought Bradley was safe.”
That all changed when Bradley started to lose interest in the job and stopped going. A few weeks later, Sands found out that Pleasted was accused of molesting two other children.
Sands’ son was interviewed by police via video statement, but initially told investigators that nothing inappropriate had occurred between him and Pleasted.
Because of that statement, the man pleaded not guilty and was released on bail. He returned to the flat directly across the street from the family.
Bradley and his siblings began to become terrified of the predatory neighbor. When Sands complained to police, they told her to move.
She and her children temporarily moved to her mother’s two-bedroom apartment. She kept asking the Newham Council to remove Mr. Pleasted, whom she calls Mick.
She alleges that the council said, “They could rehome us, but it would be away from London. I begged social services for support. Nobody wanted to listen.”
In November 2014, Bradley finally got the courage to tell his story. Sands says, “I found him pulling out his hair, rocking, shaking and crying.”
It turned out that he was attacked at the shop while working with the convicted sex offender. Bradley has since waived anonymity to share the trauma he went through.
“I was too embarrassed to say anything at first. I didn’t want to get into trouble, but I was having nightmares Mick would come after me,” he explains, now 19 years old.
Sands called the police and reported the crime. She pleaded with them to rearrest the man, but he would be free until trial, at which her son would have to testify.
She took matters into her own hands.
That night, Ms. Sands drowned her sorrows in two bottles of wine. She screamed and cried, finally able to release the angst she felt once her kids were out of earshot.
She told the media, “The guilt I felt for not protecting him overwhelmed me. That is when I picked up the knife and went to Mick’s.”
Sands claims that her intention was to get Pleasted to plead guilty to molesting her son, but that his pompous attitude caused her to anger and stab him eight times.
Twenty minutes after killing the man, she was caught leaving his apartment building on CCTV.
When police confronted her, she admitted to the revenge murder, saying, “Who houses a f-cking pedophile on an estate?”
In September 2015, the distraught mother went on trial and was convicted of manslaughter by ‘loss of control’. This is the same as a crime of passion.
During the trial, the fact that Pleasted had assaulted numerous children from 1971 to 1990 came to light. Due to his name change, authorities had lost sight of Pleasted long ago.
First, Sarah was sentenced to just 3 ½ years because the judge took her status as a single mother into account.
However, in January 2016, the Court of Appeals more than doubled that sentence to 7 ½ years, claiming that the lower court had been unjustly lenient.
Sands is a free woman now.
Now 38, Sands has been released from prison. She takes full accountability for what she did but is happy she was able to protect her son.
“I did what any mother would do because he did this to my son Bradley, my little boy. I never dreamt I’d be capable. I have no pride in it but at least I know he can’t hurt anyone else.”
Her children stand by their mother’s actions saying that what she did made them feel safer. Bradley stated, “I thought hats off. I'm not going to deny it."
She is working to change the law.
Sands is now insisting that convicted sex offenders be barred from changing their names and victimizing more children.
Since her trial, it has come out that hundreds of men convicted of similar crimes have been able to hide just beneath the radar.
Many of them had been banned from working with children, but with a new identity, were able to secure jobs in schools and homes where theY could continue to hurt kids.
Whether you believe Sarah did the right thing or not, we can all understand a mother’s desire to protect her children from imminent danger. We wish her the best.
NyRee Ausler is a writer from Seattle, Washington, and the author of seven books. She covers lifestyle and entertainment and news, as well as navigating the workplace and social issues.