A British woman who made international headlines after brutally stabbing her elderly neighbour to death has finally revealed her true motive for the grisly crime.
Sarah Sands killed Michael Pleasted, 77, in a frenzied attack after discovering the man next door was a child sex offender with three young victims in the neighbourhood – including her own 12-year-old son.
At the time, no one knew the extent of the man's criminal past, because he had changed his name after being imprisoned for grooming and assaulting multiple boys. He'd lived in his East London flat for 16 years before his past caught up with him again.
During her trial, Sands said learning of Pleasted's past was the reason she killed him after snapping, but now for the first time she and her son Bradley have revealed the truth.
"I did what any mother would do because he did this to my son Bradley, my little boy," she told The Sun newspaper.
"Mick was a role model," she told The Sun. "I had no reason not to trust him. I thought Bradley was safe."
But his closeness with children eventually led to whispers and taunts from other locals and Sands took pity on him, dropping by for cups of tea and making Pleasted meals.
The predator next door began grooming her son before abusing him in the shop and his home, just metres from his unknowing mum.
Bradley abruptly quit his job and became moody, Sands recalled. Eventually, he revealed what had happened to him.
"I found him pulling out his hair, rocking, shaking and crying. I felt sick and heartbroken."
Sands called the police and they suggested she move, so she packed up her kids and went to stay with her mother.
Later, a heavily intoxicated Sands returned to her home, got a knife from the kitchen and went to confront Pleasted.
The mother-of-five stabbed him five times, killing him.
"I never dreamt I'd be capable," she recalled. "I have no pride in it but at least I know he can't hurt anyone else.
"I'm not a bad person but I know I did a bad thing. I've never denied that and I've been punished.
"I'd never kill again. I don't see myself as a murderer. But I don't regret what I did. I was a mum desperate to protect my children."
CCTV of Sarah Sands, a kitchen knife in her hand, moments before she killed Michael Pleasted. Photo / Supplied
'I took care of him – I stabbed him'
A few weeks before Pleasted was killed, police arrived at the estate in the suburb of Canning Town to arrest and charge him with the sexual assault of two boys aged under 13.
He was also being investigated for the abuse of a third boy.
Despite that, he was released on bail to await trial and allowed to return home to his flat, which overlooked a school and a playground.
Given his closeness to Pleasted, investigators called in Bradley for questioning and he confided in them that he too had been attacked.
Sands didn't know until weeks later on November 28, 2014 when she found her boy in a hysterical state.
"He kept saying: 'I should have told you before — that could have stopped him getting those younger boys.'"
Distraught, she downed two bottles of wine and returned to her flat to confront Pleasted.
Her intention was to plead with him to confess, saving Bradley from having to testify at an eventual trial, she said. Pleasted smirked at her and said his victims were liars trying to ruin his life, before he lunged at her and grabbed her arm.
"I was frightened. It was not how it was meant to go. He was meant to listen to me. He wouldn't listen to me. He was cold. A different man to the one who had been my friendly neighbour.
"I poked him in his front with the knife and he grabbed me. I lost control. I couldn't let anyone else get hurt, somebody had to protect people."
The East London estate where Sands and Pleasted lived. Photo / Supplied
She stabbed Pleasted five times in what the court found was a "frenzied" and "sustained" attack that didn't instantly kill him.
But due to a loophole, he never had to disclose his convictions to housing authorities or the community organisation he worked for.
And when concerns first emerged about his closeness with children, police didn't bother to check a database that would've revealed his name change and his criminal record.
That record began in 1970 when he first attracted police attention.
Over a span of almost 30 years, Pleasted – then known as Robin Moult before legally changing his name – was convicted 24 times for various child sex offences.
With a new identity and no obligation to disclose his past to anyone, he moved to the Canning Town housing estate in the late 1990s and settled in to his life as Pleasted, a pleasant pensioner.
His job at the community centre gave him authority and respect, as well as access to young boys.
In 2012, a concerned local reported Pleasted's unusually close relationship with a boy. Social workers interviewed the child and his family but a complaint wasn't made.
A total of three calls to police following concerns being raised didn't raise any red flags, despite his past, because a national database wasn't checked.
In late 2014, Pleasted was arrested and charged for sexually abusing two boys and was being investigated for the assault of a third – Sands' son, Bradley.
She killed him in November that year.
The case made global headlines and elicited an outpouring of divisive emotion, with observers split on whether the killing was justified or inexcusable.
Nicholas Cooke QC, the presiding judge, described the circumstances as "unique" and believed Sands had lost control of herself, rather than set out to take the law into her own hands.
"This was a case in which the defendant promptly gave herself up to the police in a highly stressed state, never disputed responsibility for the killing as a matter of fact, did not take the opportunity to get rid of evidence and demonstrated remorse," he said.
"You were a parent placed under enormous pressure who lost control.
"Taking these matters into consideration but acknowledging there must be a limit on mercy when a life has been taken, I reduce the sentence upon you to one of three-and-a-half years' imprisonment.
"I have to sentence you for an offence of manslaughter — the unlawful taking of another's life, but not murder.
"It is necessary for me to stress that such a verdict would not be available to a defendant who is guilty of a considered act of taking the law into her or his own hands or who is involved in vigilante type conduct."
Sands received a three-and-a-half-year sentence for manslaughter that was later found to be "unduly lenient" on appeal.
