Hello, I’m Lorin LaFave of the Breck Foundation - hopefully you’ve heard of us!
I want to tell you the story of my eldest son, Breck, as he’s the reason behind the Foundation.
I’d spent four long years trying to have him and when he arrived, like all births, it was a miracle. He gave me that new title that I yearned for, ‘mom’. Somehow, I hit the baby jackpot after that and when Breck was just two and a half, triplets arrived. He was a great big brother right from the start, not realising how his little life was being rocked. He liked helping and the triplets looked up to and adored him.
Breck loved building and making things. He loved Lego and of course computers. He’d spend hours taking things apart and putting them together again, even ‘hotrodding’ his computer like my dad had with cars back in the 50s, making them faster and more efficient. In primary school he’d play games like Minecraft, but just against the computer. It amazes me when primary pupils tell me that they’re actually playing with strangers online at such a young age.
I felt Breck had a healthy balance through his younger years - computing, sport, gaming and family activities. In Year 9 he had to switch schools due to a family situation - I felt sad and guilty as he was excelling where he was. He didn’t really enjoy his new school as he hadn’t found his ‘niche’ and he seemed to have lost his great sense of humour which had made me laugh so often.
One day he came home after bumping into some boys that he used to play Lego with and was chuffed that they’d invited him into their gaming group. I was so happy for him. I knew some of these boys and felt it was a safe environment. I could hear him having fun and laughing, but over time I became aware that one of the boys he was chatting to wasn’t someone I recognised. Parental instinct perhaps, but I knew something was wrong. He made me incredibly uneasy and I felt he was some sort of predator somehow preying on children through gaming.
Just five years ago when this happened, no one at school, work or friends recognised the signs of grooming. They just didn’t believe me, perhaps because Breck was an everyday schoolboy who didn’t seem to have a vulnerability. But we all have vulnerabilities – we’re human, and predators seek out these vulnerabilities, doing or saying anything to convince a child that they’re a real friend.
This predator ‘mentored’ the boys in the gaming group, and being only teenagers, they didn’t recognise that he was a danger. As Breck had ‘met him’ through friends he didn’t understand my concerns. I knew something wasn’t right but I couldn’t convince anyone else, nor did I know where to go for help. Sadly, even with me forbidding the relationship and phoning the police, I couldn’t save Breck. He was lied to and lured to the predators flat where he was killed in a sexual and sadistic way – incomprehensible for a clever and loved 14-year-old boy.
I started the charity to share awareness of the signs of grooming and exploitation so that no child or family ever has to experience this sort of atrocity. I was over the moon when Leicestershire Police, along with Northants, Essex and Surrey Police forces collaborated to create the film Breck’s Last Game. It’s a short film intended to show teenagers how predators can build dangerous relationships through their shared interests, how a child can be isolated and turned against family and true friends, how we cannot trust ‘friends of friends’, and how a predator can be any age or gender because online, everyone is just an unknown, a stranger. We hope the film helps young people make safer choices for themselves online, remembering our tagline, “Do you really know your online friends?”
Watch it with your teens and talk about Breck’s story in an open way so that the children in your life can look after each other and keep safe in the world they love to spend time in.
