just need to get this story off my chest
(English is not my first language and it's a little hard to translate some terms so please bear with me.)
A little more than a year ago, I (19f) worked at a daycare as a volunteer. There was this guy (23m), let's call him John, in his 5th and last year of education to work in this profession. Since most of our colleagues were older, we often got assigned on tasks together by our boss, with the idea that we would be more comfortable starting out. We had made casual conversation and everything was normal until he asked me if I had a boyfriend a couple weeks in. I told him yes and he didn't seem put off and just kept talking with me. When we went home that day he mentioned that if I was single, we maybe could have thought about dating at some point but still he seemed to just brush it off.
Over the next months however there were several instances where he would ask me sexual questions (in the presence of the children!), casually touch my back or shoulder walking by or just come up from behind trying to massage my neck quite aggressively. He did this infront of everyone (during meals etc.) and kept doing it after I shied away and loudly told him to stop. In general he seemed to have no concept of personal space and sometimes would keep shuffling closer to me to the point where a colleague of mine would put herself between us as a barrier.
A lot of my colleagues actually complained about him, as he didn't treat the children the way you would expect of any rational person, let alone someone in the profession for almost five years. Of course you can banter a little with them but he would keep going almost to the point of bullying. I often saw the five-year-olds making more emotionally mature decisions than he did. John would also make racist comments etc. infront of them.
At one point I was talking to an older colleague of mine who had to work quite closely with him and we exchanged all those things. She ended up taking this to the one in charge of him and apparently there were some discussions with him, with the boss, with several of my closer colleagues, but never with me. I found out later that my boss had pretty much interrogated them if they had known about those things happening (especially him touching me).
I was quite upset but honestly didn't have the courage to approach my boss about this so I just tried to ignore him as much as possible and he did keep his hands to himself from this point on.
Another couple months later we had an intern (let's call her Jasmin) who would only be staying for a couple of weeks. She was my age and I don't know exactly what, but she did have some kind of mental disability.
We weren't very close at first because we didn't see each other often, but I saw John approaching her and it looked like they were both flirting.
A few days later she ended up getting my number from a colleague and texted me. I asked her about John and she said that he had asked her out, but she had turned him down as he had creeped her out quite quickly. Later she told me he had tried to touch her thighs under the table during mealtime and she had also loudly told him to stop. I know that she also told the same colleague I did and we were both ranting to each other, planning to approach the boss together, but we never ended up doing it.
The whole thing was pushed under the rug and I'm still angry about it. Not only because of what he did, but also that they let him finish his education there, qualifying him to watch an entire group of children on his own.
Looking back I think our boss just didn't want any of this to come out, as her reputation (especially infront of the parents) was very important to her. Honestly her being a woman makes this even worse, because one could think that she would be more understanding.
I honestly feel sorry for the parents who had to entrust John their children.
I think with Jasmin and me both, it was kind of about revenge. We had rejected him, so he had to go out of his way to make us uncomfortable.
I don't know what he does now, but last time we talked, John was going to be some sort of entertainer. At least he won't be alone with anyone I guess/hope.
Anyway, that's basically it. I had an English class today and we talked about the short story "The Confession" by Leila Slimani (it's a brilliant piece of literature but better don't read it while eating). It kind of brought all those feelings back and I needed to get this out there somehow. Of course what happened to me doesn't really compare to that but just this feeling of injustice and disgust reminded me.
I don't really expect anyone to read all that but if you did, thanks!