AIBU to make DS16 reports sexual messages sent from his phone?

Whoever wrote the message is a potential problem for girls and women in the future because they think messages as outline in OP are a joke.
They aren't.

You know & I know there was no one being harassed .
It was exactly that , larking around .
A message sent to all the girls he has on snap chat by his friend acting the fool .
However, It is something that could turn serious so it has to be acted on straight away.
Number one going to school , number 2 calling to the young girl he tutors house to apologise & explain.

In your position, I would have checked Ds's phone to see if indeed it had gone out to every girl, this would confirm for me it was a prank. I would also encourage (as your ds has done) a message to all the recipients; I would go through the girls with him and check it was peers only and not young cousins etc; and he should most definitly go to the students house and apologise profusely to both her and her parents. I understand the peer pressure re snitching but I think the school should have a heads up in case they have complaints, even if he won't disclose the boys name.

Oh ffs sake relax 🙄.
Teenage boys can be immature, his friend was larking around .
”Hideous behaviour “ , calm down.
It wasn’t this carefully thought out plan .
They weren’t stalking anyone , harassing a girl at school .
Have you ever been around teenage boys when you were a teen yourself ?
It’s something that can be sorted out .
They just have to go & do exactly that right now before it gets out of hand .

‘Larking about’ isn’t much of a defence for sexual harassment

Keep him safe? No her job is to ensure he doesn’t pose a threat to others

Don’t you see the girl who he tutors parents will report him to police .
You need to give your son an ultimatum, he & his friend have to go to the principal together or else you will have to go in .
This could get very serious very fast .
Teenage boys can be so immature, as in his friend , I’m sure he was just larking about , but look at it now .

this no ifs ands or buts

I’m usually pretty magnanimous / level-headed / non-reactionary…. And even I would have already reported to Police (both if I were the young female victim’s parent and if I was OP.

Nothing to fear? Then report and clear his name.

In denial? Leave it to come to bite him.

This is not a friend, OP. Your DS needs to report him.

Same

(Although I cannot imagine being stupid enough to employ a 16 year old boy to tutor a 13 year old girl tbh)

If my daughter aged 13 received that message from a boy aged 16, who we were also employing as a tutor id be absolutely horrified and would be reporting this to the Police and the school with or without my daughters support.

I don’t think i have ever read such a thread where someone is coming across as so uneducated! Your son needs to report this to the police and if he doesn’t then you need to now. If my year 9 daughter got a message like that from a tutor I wouldn’t be getting the school involved it would be the police. Being a tutor he is a position of trust and it could be seen as grooming. If your son is innocent as he says then he should be happy to make that report.

if he’s not then I’d be seriously worried that the story he is telling you is made up. If it is then he needs to admit his mistake and do some serious damage control and growing up.

I disagree. My otherwise sensible son did this with a group of friends at a sleepover. They used the fingerprint thing to unlock while their friend was asleep. They sent some stupid message to all the friends contacts. I made it very clear to him that it was awful behaviour

The big error here was op's child having someone they tutor as a SM contact. That should never have happened. It's basic safeguarding

Bollocks. I can’t believe your innocence / ignorance around current sexual parlance - either you’ve been out of the loop of dating for a long time or you’re over-60. Let me translate:

“Do you want to hook up - I’m horny” = “do you want to have casual sex, I’m feeling sexually aroused”.

HTH.

Yes, they’re all about protecting girls and feminism and all that, except when it’s their precious, innocent son who would NEVER.

It’s disgusting and depressing.

I'm not sure why you're taking such a passive stance, OP. You are the parent, your child came to you for advice, you should act. Your son needs to understand that 'snitching' is necessary in serious situations (which this is) and, if his 'friend' was an actual friend, he would be as concerned about your DS as your DS is about him. If he doesn't learn this now, when will he? When, as an adult, he fails to stop or report another friend harassing or attacking a young woman? Theft? Drugs? Bullying? Violence? When will he learn what he should not stay silent about?

Since he seems to be too immature to understand potential consequences, I would explain that you have a responsibility to report this to the school, as it is your job to keep him safe.

He's a child, you need to protect him This could have major ramifications for his future.

If I saw a message like that on the phone of my 13 or 14 year old, who would therefore be under the age of consent, sent by a boy aged 16/17 who was therefore over the age of consent, I would definitely report it to his school and possibly to the police as I would be concerned that he was a threat to underage girls. I certainly wouldn’t contact him before doing so, so there is no way your son can be certain whether her parents have seen it.

If it really was sent by a friend, he would be a fool not to explain the position to the school at least, ahead of any report.

Isnt it odd how some mothers of boys are so protective of them and minimise their hideous behaviour? you see it on here - ‘not a bad lad’, ‘it was
someone else’, ‘he didn’t really mean it’. No wonder their sons then often grow up to be nasty little misogynists.

You need to parent, this is not his choice.

Sorry OP but I think his story sounds like a typical teenage boy, who has made a big mistake and is now panicking. It seems extremely unlikely that your son was able to have his phone out on his desk, unlocked during a lesson. The new legislation around children’s use of phones in schools has been widely discussed in my school this week in staff briefings and it’s been made clear to us that phones should be never used, seen or heard during school hours. I’d be surprised if schools weren’t on top of this, particularly at the moment.
You need to speak to the Safeguarding Lead at your son’s school immediately so they can take steps to support the Y9 child involved in this.
It’s likely this will have serious repercussions on your son’s education. However, I would urge you to do the right thing here and safeguard the young girl (girls) who received these messages.

What us all this phone locking stuff? I have never had a lock on my phone - I might be in the minority but some on here seem to think all phones have this - maybe they do but not everyone avails themselves to this function. It would drive me mad unlocking it every time I wanted t use it.

Not great if its ever lost or stolen but I take that risk.

OP - be very careful and think about what your going to do next. I have been in a very similar position (it was my child who received a message like that) and I was first to speak to the headmaster - the boy was expelled immediately and the new school he got into, was informed of what he had done (it was a safeguarding thing). I dont know if he was later accepted into the new school either - last i heard he might not have been. You are coming across as a pretty bad parent for not even caring about this poor girl OP.

To be fair, if this was my son, I think my very first concern would be the decision how to handle this in the best way possible. Before approaching anyone. I imagine I'd be supporting him to send a message to everyone that got one apologising and stating that the message didn't come from him, his phone was stolen and used by someone else, and the matter would be referred to the school and police immediately. I'd keep him off school to go and report and go with him. I wouldn't want to go rushing in without some thought, though obviously would want to act promptly. For the sake of the girl too, rushing in with an emotional reaction might not be the best idea. Thinking fast would be right though. I do think the parents of the young girl need to be contacted and told about the situation today. Maybe get advice from the police if they should handle this or if you should call yourself.

If your son won't do any of this with full understanding of the ramifications of what has happened, chances are there is no friend or he'll break down and confess it was him after all. Assuming there is a friend, no friend who would put him in this position deserves his protection.