Eleven years prior, Sarah Sands fatally murdered convicted paedophile Michael Pleasted. In their inaugural joint statement, her three sons inform BBC News that they were all victims of sexual abuse at his hands, and they express their current sentiments towards their mother’s offence.
On an autumn evening in 2014, Sarah Sands exited her east London maisonette with a hood obscuring her face, wielding a knife. She proceeded to a nearby apartment complex, specifically to the residence of an elderly gentleman. Upon arrival, she inflicted eight stab wounds on Michael Pleasted in what was subsequently characterised as a “determined and sustained assault.” He succumbed to exsanguination.
Michael Pleasted was 77 years old and a convicted paedophile. At that moment, he was confronting additional charges. He was charged with sexual offences against young boys on the estate located in Silvertown, where he resided. Legally, as in all similar cases, the identities of those youngsters could not be disclosed during the trial.
All three males implicated in the case were the offspring of Michael Pleasted’s murderer, Sarah Sands.
Her eldest son, Bradley, aged 12 at the time, relinquished his right to anonymity last year to disclose the abuse. In an interview with BBC News, his younger twin brothers, Alfie and Reece, have similarly expressed their views. At the age of 11, their mother murdered the man alleged to have abused them.
As young adults, now ages 19 and 20, they recall the moment in their childhood when they discovered their mother’s actions. In conjunction with their mother, they express that their upbringing with her incarcerated was challenging. Although their mother expresses guilt for her acts, her sons candidly critique her behaviour.
The mother who fatally stabbed a convicted paedophile after he assaulted her three sons.
“I thought hats off,” Bradley tells the BBC. “I’m not going to deny it.”
“It did make us feel safer,” Alfie adds. “It didn’t slow down the nightmares. But it did give us a sense of security because you didn’t have to walk down the street thinking he was going to come around the corner.”
“He lived literally across the road from us,” Bradley adds. “I could open that window over there,” he says pointing, “and I’d see his house.”
Reece says, then aged 11, it was “nice knowing that he was dead”. But he adds: “It didn’t stop any afterthoughts, you know, we would often wake up crying [saying] ‘where’s mum?'”
Sarah Sands and her family moved to their new home, also in Silvertown, months before the killing.
She became friends with Michael Pleasted, who lived on his own. He was a high-profile character on the estate, often perched on a seat outside the newsagents, giving him contact with the local residents and their children. “I thought he was a lovely old man,” she says now. “I cooked for him, looked after him, always kept him company when I had the time.”
Michael Pleasted sorted the newspapers in the shop and some children had Saturday jobs working with him. “He asked if Brad could help out and he was so excited,” Sands says. She says Michael Pleasted was grooming her eldest son and gradually gaining more access to the twins. He invited the three boys back to his home.
One evening the twins disclosed to her that, while at the flat, Michael Pleasted had sexually assaulted them. A week later Bradley revealed the same. Michael Pleasted was arrested and charged with offences against her sons.
While Michael Pleasted was awaiting trial, the judge gave him bail and said he could return to the estate. Sands said she was distraught and uncomprehending. She moved her family to her mother’s small home.
On the night of the attack, she was caught on CCTV going to Michael Pleasted’s flat. She says she wanted to ask him to plead guilty to the charges and spare her boys the ordeal of going to court.
“I didn’t know what I was doing there,” she says. “I realised I had made a huge mistake. He was not remorseful in any shape or form. He said ‘your children are lying’. The whole world froze. I had the knife in my left hand and I remember he tried to grab it.” She maintains she did not intend to kill Michael Pleasted.
A few hours later she handed herself in at a police station with her blood-stained knife and clothing. The judge in the trial later said he did not believe she had “rationally thought through what taking a knife might lead to” but added: “I am sure the possibility of its use was in her mind.”
Sarah Sands was convicted of manslaughter, rather than murder, on the grounds she had lost control. She was jailed for three and a half years – but later saw the sentence increased to seven and a half years because it was ruled to be too lenient. Court of Appeal judges said she had done nothing to help Michael Pleasted hadn’t called the emergency services.
She spent nearly four years in prison. “I had taken the law into my own hands,” she says now. “I’ve always been raised to take responsibility for my actions.”
While their single mother was behind bars, the three boys and their two younger brothers lived with their grandmother.
“There was loads of us all in one room. There was no privacy,” Bradley tells the BBC. “My nan was talking to my mum on the phone in prison, asking her if I could go and play football, or go out with my mates. And often she would say ‘no’.”
Alfie says the three brothers did “miss out on stuff”. They saw her once a month on their regular prison visits. “Sometimes you just want to tell your Mum a problem,” he says now. Their friends knew what had happened. But Bradley says he does remember other people asking: “Where’s your Mum? We never see her.”
“They were angry with me,” Sands adds. “Before I went in, we were so close and then all of a sudden, I wasn’t there anymore. It was awful for them.”
Asked if she felt remorse for ending Michael Michael Pleasted’s life, she says: “Absolutely.” Pressed further, she adds: “I bring life into the world. It never occurred to me that I would be guilty of taking life out of the world.”
During the court case it emerged that Michael Pleasted had changed his name from Robin Moult and was a convicted paedophile. He had 24 previous convictions for sex offending spanning three decades. His crimes had carried jail terms. But nobody in the area, including the local council that housed him, knew about his past.
Sarah Sands has now joined others who are campaigning for tighter restrictions on sex offenders who change their names.
Labour MP, Sarah Champion, who has raised the issue with ministers, says some sex offenders are using their new identities to get through DBS checks. These are compulsory in certain roles and reveal criminal convictions.
“Once they have changed their names, they are able to get a new driving licence and passport in that name,” says Sarah Champion. “That enables them to get a new DBS check. And we are finding that these people are then going into schools and other places where there are children and vulnerable people and exploiting their positions of trust in the most horrific ways.”
The easiest solution would be for police to mark offenders’ passports and driving licences at the point of sentencing, Ms Champion tells BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
That would mean police would be automatically notified if an offender tried to change their name – and a new assessment could be made of their risk to society, she adds.
A Home Office spokesperson said it had already conducted a review of the issue, but it could not publish it because it contained sensitive information, which could potentially be used by offenders to exploit the system.
Sarah Sands was released from prison in 2018. Her sons say they have managed to rebuild their relationship with her since then. “She did try to baby us,” says Reece, smiling. “It was nice but it just makes you realise all those years that were lost.”
“There is nothing that is going to break the family bond,” adds Bradley.
The boys say, as children, they regretted revealing the abuse. “If we had all kept out mouth shut, we would have had our mum, and we would have been going shopping, going to the cinema, doing what a normal 12-year-old would do,” says Bradley.
But they say they now realise it is important for victims to speak out. “It going to be hard, but it does get better,” says Reece. “You should always come forward,” Alfie adds, “it’s better to talk. If you don’t, it’s just going to get worse.”
If you or anyone you know have been affected by the people highlighted in this article, then please report those individuals to the Police on 101 (999 if an emergency) or visit their online resources for further details of the options for reporting a crime. You can also make a report at Crimestoppers should you wish to be completely anonymous. There is help available on our support links page.