I'd speak to the police again in your shoes. The other person that might be able to help/point you in the right direction is if you can find out who your local Child Protection/Safeguarding officer is at the local council.

I can't stand hysteria or vigilante type action (as I've said before on here it cost us our home when my sister died), however no adults should be approaching a 5 year old child about staying overnight without prior discussion/permission from the child's parents. That is odd, and concerning, behaviour imo.

Nobody is getting hysterical.

If the police are aware that there is a problem they will be monitoring the situation as will other agencies, especially now concerns have been raised.
Personally I think the best thing you could do is to have a word with these neighbours and tell them you are not comfortable with them asking your 5 yr old to stay over or go for walks etc.

I did not say they were getting hysterical here.

There is, however, a culture of hysteria about the issue. The link illustrated what happens as a result. There were riots around it. If that's not a result of mass hysteria, it's difficult to know what is.

My five year old son has had friends sleep over and he's slept over at other friends' houses. Unless we assume that everyone is a paedophile until they prove otherwise, I don't see the problem.

The reasons I have for thinking sleepovers for very young children are not something I would do are nothing to do with paedophiles.

Dont bother informing the police, you'll only end with social services sniffing around you.

Have a quiet word with the bloke not to go anywhere near your child ever again, or you won't be responsible for your actions.

Oh. What are they then?

What did you mean by this, if it wasn't a reference to potential paedophilia?

I don't give advice to people how to bring up their kids, and I don't listen to anyone else either. I'm not telling you what to do with your kids - let's get that straight first.

It is a reference to a number of things, I wouldn't trust my mother in law for a number of reasons, my wife's sister dropped our daughter on her head when she was 12 months old and didn't give a $h!t - would Ilet her look after our kids - not a chance. I've seen people "do" things with their kids that I wouldn't allow mine to do many people think it's perfectly okay for a 5 year old to roam the streets, if they happen to be looking after mine then what if they then think it's okay for my 5 year old to roam the streets with theirs? What if they think it'sokay to smoke dope infornt of kids? A good friend of mine has a boy the same age as my son, I won't let him go to his house because his Dad (who is actually an okay bloke I've known for years) seems to think it's okay for his son to have an Xbox live account and play online 18 games (he's 9) with various unknown adults. He also has guns that they get out in the garden. Not for me thanks.

As for very young children, they completely rely on the adults they are with, I am responsible for my kids in ways that nobody else is and nobody else ever will be.

That answer your question?

So, a couple of crummy relatives, an utterly irresponsible adult (who's alright really) and some 'what ifs'.

And you extrapolate that to the world in general?

And nobody was telling you what to do with your children: they were reacting to your flat-out 'no, never' comments on a thread about, in essence, concerns re child abuse.

Not really. The people you've mentioned are obviously idiots. I wouldn't leave my child with them either. That doesn't account for why you think five-year-olds in general shouldn't have sleepovers.

My son's friends' parents bring up their children differently to how I bring up mine. They seem like caring, responsible people though, and my son is at no greater risk sleeping at their house than he is going to spend the afternoon/teatime there.

My daughter will be 10 soon and it is only in this past year that she been on a sleepover (I don't count her nan's house in this). I honestly think at aged 5 she would have never settled in a strange bed anyway, hence it never happened.

If it was me I would have gone round and done them both in, you can't take chances with paedos.

Its like Iraq and the WMDs thing, I know there weren't any, but just ask yourself, what if there were? You can't take chances.