12yr old pals with criminals son, help!

beetlebailey

My son has been hanging around with a lad in his class for the past six months or so. He's had a couple of sleepovers in his house and vice versa. They friend seems like a nice enough lad , he lives in another estate in the area so neither myself or my wife know his parents other than to say hello to .

The problem is that recently my sons tennis coach who is also a detective told me in confidence that this chaps dad is under investigation by CAB and without going into details he is known to them. This has come as about of a shock although it makes some sense as neither of the parents of this lad appear to work yet the live in a very large house with big TVs, pool table, bar etc.....

Also the friend was telling my son how friends of his dad where at a recent event in a Dublin hotel that was all over the news a few weeks ago!!

My son is a good lad, never in trouble but he does have a habit of answering back and telling him he can no longer hang around with this lad without an explanation is not possible. He will just keep asking why until he gets an answer plus we'll get the " you can't stop me" line from him.

So does anyone have any advice as to how to approach the situation as as you can imagine we've never been in this situation before. Plus if there is truth in what I've been told I would be quite concerned that my son would repeat it to his mate and it would get back to the mates dad.

silverharp

Does the other parent come back on a google search? I certainly wouldn't let my kids go to the house of a criminal. If you could find out publicly available info then at least you wouldn't be drawing attention to the guard.
At the end of the day you should be teaching him that there are certain people that are better staying away from, or not getting too close too.