The Nonce

I read a funny gag on the differences between British blokes and American chaps the other day. The gist was, an American will always big up his friends when introducing them. “Hey, meet Brian. Great guy, graduated from such and such university, really smart guy, you’ll love him. I’ve known him forever, has a great job etc etc.” The Brit? “Have you met Dave? Here he comes…Dave the nonce!” It’s funny, because it’s true. 

True in that, these are noticeable cultural differences. Not that Dave is a nonce. We can tell he’s not a nonce, because he’s got friends. British blokes don’t have nonce friends. Brian, on the other had, could be a raging nonce on the Epstein list, with a dozen photos of him having baths with minors knocking around the interweb, and he’d still get a great intro. And that, weirdly, is another cultural differences between Brits and Yanks.

I have some true stories about nonces. I’ve come across a couple of them. I can tell you two things. One, you don’t have to be friends with a nonce, even if it’s a bit awkward. Two, you kinda know they’re nonces before it’s official. They tell you, in a roundabout way. They can’t help themselves. I don’t know why they do this. I’m not a psychiatrist. 

The first one was over twenty years ago. My best mates dad. Which was awkward. I went round to see my mate one day and he wasn’t there. His dad let me in to wait for his return. I didn’t know it, but this would be the last time I’d ever knock on that door. As we went into the lounge, he turned and in a slightly aggrieved manner told me, “You’ve got me into a lot of trouble.” He did not need to say a word more. I knew exactly what had happened, and it had absolutely bugger all to do with me. I even glanced over to look at his computer for confirmation, and it had indeed gone. The police had been round and taken both it and him away. Because he’s a nonce.

I’d told him months earlier about a bit of software called KaZaa, which was a Napster type program for downloading music, telly programs and movies. He initially tried to blame his misfortune on this. I pointed out that if he’d typed Shawshank Redemption into the search box and not pre-teen girls, he might not have had a problem. It was difficult to argue against my logic. So he didn’t. Sensible. As it transpired, KaZaa had nothing to do with it. He’d been nicked as part of Operation Ore, because he’d used his credit card to pay for child pornography.

It didn’t surprise me, because he’d spent months talking about how certain ISPs snooped on what websites you visit, over and over again. Paranoid. And then there was the repeated mentioning of dodgy sex websites and underage girls. It was increasingly obvious he was a wrong ‘un. But also my best mates dad. Awkward, as I’ve said. For the next six months, he kept contacting me. He had plans on how to mount a defence, mostly involving blaming it on a bloke called Alky Malky who had died at a convenient point on his sex offending timeline. And he needed witnesses.

Alky Malky was a raging alcoholic who would be bamboozled by a standard calculator. The idea that he would be able to navigate a website and use a credit card to pay for child porn was preposterous. What was equally unlikely was the possibility of me turning up to a court to testify in defence of a someone who I knew perfectly well was a nonce. Absolutely no chance. But he was my best mates day. Awkward. I tried to simply take a vague ‘yeah but no but maybe, but yeah’ strategy in the hope he’d just go away. 

Eventually, after the aforementioned six months, he phoned to say I wouldn’t be needed after all. The police weren’t going to proceed. He’d got the Big C. Wouldn’t last out the year. And I won’t lie, I’ve never been so pleased to hear that someone has terminal lung cancer in my entire life. I might have been saying ‘oh, I’m sorry to hear that’, but I was definitely fist-pumping and silently mouthing ‘get in!!!’ He did manage to survive the year, but not by much. His 20 a day Lambert and Butler habit caught up with him before justice could, and spared him a spell in nick and a headline in the local Gazette, ‘John The Nonce Jailed!’

About five years ago, a new chap started at work. An odd bloke, if we’re going to be honest. Needy. A bit annoying too. But most of his quirks and weirdness could be forgiven. His constant fascination with child sex abuse couldn’t. If someone brings that sort of stuff up on an almost daily basis, there’s something wrong. He started writing a book about it, that rather read like fan fiction. He was beyond creepy. We used to joke that it was only a matter of time before the police came round and took him away. 

I was concerned enough to discreetly tell a manager that there was someone in the workforce - without saying who - that we joked the police would come round and take away one day. Be careful if someone ask for roles involving kids. Weeks later, the bloke was doing voluntary stuff with kids. What a waste of my breath. And then, to absolutely no ones surprise whatsoever, the police came and took him away. Along with stuff from his locker. He didn’t return to work. A year later he was convicted of possession of nearly 10,000 images, collected over the span of more than a decade, a few of them the worst kind. He wasn’t spared being the headline of the local paper, ‘John the Nonce.’ The pair of them were John’s.

He tried to walk through the station a few times to speak to people, to see if anyone had any sympathy. They didn’t. The nonce word was used more than once. I’m told there was once a message over the tannoy, “For your safety, please stand behind the yellow line and away from the nonce wearing the cap”. Unlike in the States, it’s never ok to be a nonce in the UK. But it is ok to call someone a nonce as a term of affection. I can’t explain that, I’m afraid.