AIBU to speak to his parents after these messages to my daughter?

@ittakesalongtimr As others posters have suggested: DO NOT GIVE HER PHONE BACK. You need to keep it so you can quickly take a photo (with another phone/tablet) when messages come in. Give her a spare phone/borrow one for her. She's 14 and doesn't need her phone for work. This is serious. I don't want to frighten you but I have personal experience. My then 17 year old boyfriend that I had breaken up with showed up with a gun outside my house threatening to kill my family if I didn't come out. I never told my mum and younger siblings to protect them and stayed with him for 2 years until I was 18 and could leave the country as aupair. I told him we would still be together but counted on him finding someone else. I was in the US for 2 years and luckily he had moved on and didn't care for me anymore. So don't let your daughter be in touch with him- he can menace your family and she will do anything to protect you!!!! Police 100%!!!!

Why? It’s been reported now via the correct channel - 101 - and will be investigated and the OP will be updated/can call back with the allocated crime number.

It is victim‑blaming to treat repeated victimisation as a personal pattern rather than a perpetrator pattern.

You are framing* *multiple abusive relationships as ‘a pattern’, ‘rarely coincidence’ and as something within the woman that needs ‘addressing’. This shifts the causal focus away from perpetrators and onto the victim’s psychology or choices.

Abusive men target women who have already been harmed because they are easier to isolate, discredit, or manipulate. This is a perpetrator behaviour, not a victim vulnerability.

You claim that this is ‘established evidence‑based practice’. It is not.

The evidence shows that most women who experience abuse do NOT go on to have multiple abusive partners. When repeated victimisation occurs, the strongest predictors are perpetrator behaviour, structural disadvantage, and ongoing coercive control, not personal vulnerability. Healthy relationship education does not prevent perpetrator behaviour.

Trauma‑informed support helps women recover, but it does not change the likelihood of a perpetrator targeting them. The implication that she could ‘minimise the chances’ of future abuse if she changed herself reinforces the idea that the problem is her judgement, not the perpetrator’s behaviour. That is textbook victim‑blaming.

Personally I would be driving further to an open police station, horrible for your daughter to have this hanging over her for days, and potentially getting more abuse for days. Not to worry you but these things can escalate.

school will have someone on site and / or details of who to contact with safeguarding issues.

Do you have a spare handset you can give her? Police are likely to want to take her phone to examine anyway so if she needs a phone, best get a replacement in place now and you can monitor any messages coming in to the old one between now and then. Do not allow her to download Snapchat on the new phone.

I'm not ruling out telling the police, I'm saying tell the parents and school first and I am not victim blaming, I am simply pointing our that her daughter has declined to tell her mum why they split up and there maybe more than meets the eye. I quite clearly said it did not excuse his comments. Do not make out I said things that I did not.

DD is absolutely adamant I’m not to call the police and says she won’t talk to them / will delete everything, she became hysterical at prospect of it

I would try to get to the bottom of this. Why is she so averse to police involvement?

Has he done something to her, and then threatened "if you go to the police I'll...."?

It's not victim blaming to observe and identify patterns of vulnerability within relationships. It's rarely coincidence when a woman has a number of abusive relationships in a row, it's a pattern and needs to be addressed through psychosocial education around healthy relationships, abusive patterns and identifying warning signs, as well as providing holistic support to increase resilience and confidence. This is established evidence based practice in social work, DA support services etc

Dont talk to his parents. You dont know what they are like - we had a situation where I live where after a confrontation between two families (over some primary school bullying) there was a violent fight and one family had move to due to abuse that followed.

Screenshot the messages and contact the school's safeguarding lead. I know what your daughter is saying but explain to her this is serious and have to be dealt with. Let the school deal with it. But I would probably log it with police tbh. Even just as a record.

If the messages are still there, take a photo wkrh another phone or ipad.

In a time where violence against women is rising, incel behaviour is more common and aggression is normalised you did the right thing calling 101 but do not drop the issue. Keep evidence of everything even if it doesn’t seem that extreme, even if it’s to use in future. He sounds like a freak.

Can you get her a cheap burner phone to jse for worl and you keep her main phone for now.

Snapchat is a nightmare as they set up mew accounts if blocked.

Whilst schools have broken up, most SLT members will be in for a few days next week clearing desks for the summer (our HT is for sure) so someone would pick it up in school. It’s a safeguarding thing, so i would let them know. They probably won’t act on it over the summer but should be aware for next year so they can support your daughter appropriately and log the issue in case it arises again/goes further.

Can you not get her a cheap phone to use in the interim ?. I understand the need for her to keep in contact but giving her back the phone isn’t ideal - not least because you don’t know if/when the abuse will start up again.

Well done Op, you did the right thing. You must feel so frustrated about the wait though. Can you get her a cheap temporary brick/PAYG phone for now to help make sure she has a way of contacting you/DH while you’re waiting for the police but doesn’t run the risk of him getting in touch?

OP
If you screenshot he will see this has been done. Previously I have screen recorded (don’t know if this is notified like screenshot) but also I have videod off my own phone whilst scrolling through the messages.

Dreadful advice. The police are the first port of call - this is a serious criminal offence. This boy is encouraging suicide and sending malicious communications. At 15 he’s old enough to face the consequences of that. OP doesn’t know his parents or have the slightest idea of how they will react - they may try to destroy evidence if they suspect OP will involve the police. This isn’t a situation where you can barter your boundaries to avoid police involvement.

I’d bet the farm this isn’t the first time this kid has done this - he knows to use snapchat because the messages disappear so he thinks he can’t be held accountable - well he can, and he needs to be.

And nice bit of victim blaming there at the end. It doesn’t matter why they split. He has absolutely no right to inflict this poisonous shit on anyone, least of all a vulnerable teenage girl.

I work in schools. This is most definitely something to let them know as for all you know it will be part of a wider picture. We can’t punish per se; however, it would lead to wider dialogue and should lead to targeted PSHCE lessons.
It certainly would in my school. We would adapt the curriculum to ensure we addressed issues in the here and now - incels, toxic masculinity and relationships etc. I appreciate schools are off until September but safeguarding is always picked up.
I hope your daughter is okay.

@ittakesalongtimr Thank you for updating us. Sending best wishes to you and your daughter, I hope reporting this will put an end to your daughter being tormented by this boy and also stop him ever treating any other person in this manner.

Apologies - hadn't read all of your posts when I replied.

I think that the police can recover Snapchat messages.

As a teacher, I had to report a serious matter some years ago, and the police asked for the victims' phones - the messages had all been sent via Snapchat.

have only read OP.
Sod his parents - go right to the police. Screenshot everything.

And @PollyBell and anyone else accusing the op.

Another interpretation is that the op is looking for a way in to talking to his parents, to let them know what he’s done so they can, hopefully, intervene. Making the conversation about the op is strategic fgs.

Her saying, your son has said x about me, and he also told my DD to go kill herself, at the same time, is a useful attempt to deflect from her DD. Clearly she’s doing this so that the boy doesn’t double down on her DD, which is what the DD is obviously and legitimately worried about.

This has to be one of the more bizarre ways of pointing the finger at a woman that I’ve seen on here.

OP is allowed to have feelings about both types of abusive comments; the ones directed to her dd and the ones about OP.