AIBU to be angry after a girl faked pregnancy so my son could respond to her messages?

I worry that it's been a very long thread about things that never happened.

Appalling behaviour by the girl, but really think you need to step back now - forget this PA malarky and leave it with the safeguarding lead to deal with now that's been flagged to them. Focus on your son's mental health instead. Including supporting him with reporting the harassment if HE wants to do that, rather than you and his dad pushing him this way.

Thing I don't get is how you've seen the explicit images though as surely if they were not wanted and your son repeatedly said no he would have deleted them as soon as received? And if he did not delete them, for what purpose was he keeping them?

I've received unsolicited dick pics over the years (and videos on a couple of occasions), but nobody going through my devices would find these as they were deleted as soon as I got them. If your son has kept the images (which is implied by the fact that you say you have seen them) his actions don't quite match up to what he's saying and this warrants an honest conversation with him.

So your husband wants to shame this young woman, and absolutely has no regard for your opinion on it?

No way would DH do something so drastic without mutual agreement between us.

And the "helping the school improve" is nonsense. How will discussing this girls sex life improve the school?
I feel for your son, but his Dad isn't coming across well.

Speaking to her parents because I'd be concerned about her state fo mind, yes.

Tattling to her school that she upset your son? Overkill.

The harassment and everything else happened after they had sex.

They agreed that neither wanted a relationship, but were fine with casual sex. Afterwards, she pursued him for a relationship, and wouldn’t take no for an answer when he repeatedly told her to stop.

That was the point that he got harsh with her and told her that he wanted a better girl. Perhaps he thought that would be enough to make her go away and leave him alone, but it wasn’t. I don’t see the problem with getting harsh with someone ignoring your boundaries tbh, and I’m not sure why the apparently delicate feelings of someone choosing to harass you would be particularly deserving of consideration.

I think there's probably some justification for contacting the safeguarding leads at both schools, OP, so that sounds like the right course of action.

I don't understand why you think getting a bunch of random parents gossiping about your son and this girl's private business by informing the parents' association would ever be a good idea. I suspect if your husband insists or goes ahead with this, you'll be opening a huge can of worms and end up regretting it. For the sake of your son and the girl involved, this whole matter is probably best dealt with as privately as is now possible.

It’s been clear from early on that the girl was persistently pursuing him and eventually crossed into harassment — nobody’s disputing that. But the OP has steadily escalated the “impact on her son” as the thread went on.

That escalation isn’t driven by new information; it’s driven by her discomfort when posters started asking reasonable questions. And yes, she keeps overstating his accountability compared to hers — partly trying to fit the usual narrative, partly avoiding demonising the girl, and partly because this forum leaps straight to extremes the second anyone challenges a storyline.

What’s more telling is the way she’s used the word “safeguarding” as a carte blanche — as if saying it automatically validates her version of events. It doesn’t.

If my son were genuinely experiencing suicidal ideation, and she was telling him to kill himself, I wouldn’t be fixated on her lies about a pregnancy. I’d be safeguarding my son. The OP didn’t do that. She went from calm updates to sudden “chaos and distress” only when people questioned her narrative.

She wasn’t outraged, she wasn’t protective, she didn’t shift into safeguarding mode. She just dropped those statements in as ammunition for her argument. That’s not how a parent behaves when their child is genuinely at risk; it’s how someone behaves when they’re trying to strengthen a narrative.

Her escalation mirrors her defensiveness, not his actual wellbeing.

The son is not a student at that school anymore, and his father position on the boys’ school parents’ association gives him zero authority here.

That school has no jurisdiction over an 18‑year‑old at a completely different girls’ school, and certainly no jurisdiction over a private dispute between two adults. His involvement isn’t official — it’s overreach.

Your son sounds vile and your DH not much better. Your son told her he wanted a "better" girl at uni but he'd do her the favour of shagging her anyway to pass the time? And that somehow reflects badly on her not him?

Bloody hell what a family you lot are.

Where did I say ‘turn a blind eye’? I said the son, as an adult, should lead the response (with parents support).

Here:

For example, if what he wants is for this to stop and be over then getting the school and PTA involved is not a good idea.

Even if DS wanted to leave it there, I think it's difficult for a parent (a solicitor) involved with the PTA to not alert the school when they have become aware it's impacting multiple students.

I agree it doesnt require them to go through his phone, but everything reads as though it's after DS has come to them for help. I'm assuming - perhaps wrongly - that he had agency in this.

And yes the principle of ‘the adult is in charge of their own life’ is one that applied equally to men and women. I have had female victims of SA, females diagnosed with terminal illness etc and the parents are absolutely not leading the charge on how that is dealt with. They aren’t even in the room for most of the meetings we have with students (very rarely a student will ask to have a parent for support). Most young people see themselves as adults and don’t want parental crutches. In the cases of very serious mental illness we may inform parents, of other next of kin…

It is a totally different subject but, in any event, the issue of indecent images being (persistently) sent to minors is definitely relevant to the thread, and it sounds like a very real possibility that the images constituted CSAM.

I aldo find it very hard to square your "the age of consent should be 18" position with your prior comments about infantalizing, a 17/18 year old. Schraudingers sexual maturity.

Where did I say ‘turn a blind eye’? I said the son, as an adult, should lead the response (with parents support). I work in a uni and this absolutely is something we would treat as a wellbeing issue for both students in the first instance. If any criminal activity has occurred, such as harassment, response would be led by student conduct policies. None of this requires mum and dad in the text message and photo history of their son’s phone, gossiping to other parents or any of that. The escalation of this by the parents is alarming to me, and again would form part of any wellbeing support we’dnoffer both parties. The last thing these adults need is drama-hyped parents making everything worse. In the normal course of things this kind of incident blows over, what would be urgent residually is addressing both young people’s ability to cope with intimate relationships, and the inevitable rejection that they involve.

I think its hard for someone with any sort of involvement in a school, especially when they're in a regulated profession, to turn a blind eye to an issue like this (that seems endemic) once they are made directly aware of it.

I also find it difficult to envisage the same attitude being taken in relation to a just-turned-18 young woman, who came to their parents for help.

This, with bells on!

Yeah don't even get me started on why those two things don't align in our country.
Personally I think age of consent should be 18. But totally different subject!

If you had started this thread with ‘my son is suicidal after being harasser/stalked by a one night stand who also lied about being pregnant’ - the responses would have been different. Presuming this is the case, your son needs to block her on everything and make a police report for harassment. He then needs therapy as to be driven to suicidal ideation over this is extremely concerning.

As parents of an adult child, your own behaviour is still extremely overbearing and infantilising. You need to empower him (and support him) to take the action that feels appropriate and proportionate and will lead to the outcome he wants. For example, if what he wants is for this to stop and be over then getting the school and PTA involved is not a good idea. I would say that you should also support your son to understand this as a learning experience about the complexity of sex, and the need for absolute emotional maturity in one night stands. The looking through his phone, looking at explicit pictures of this young woman, reporting it to the school and so on is creating such drama around the whole event that it is no wonder your son has moved to catastrophise. None of what has happened is the end of the world. Whichever way you cut it, you are too involved in your adult child’s business and need a bit of self reflection. (I know a fair few private school educated men whose overbearing parents have really impeded their ability to live an adult life, pit the breaks on this tendency to swoop in as if he were a toddler now).

The age of majority in the UK is 18.

16 and 17 year olds are not criminalized for having consensual sexual contact, but are not legally allowed to access any pornograpgy, let alone CSAM. Nor, of course, should they be making of distributing any.

She did, though. She's escalated in terms of impact on her son, but its been clear since very early in the thread that - based on what OP has read/seen - the girl was persistently pursuing DS and then tipped over to harrassment.

That said, I do agree that the OP's posts have consistently over-stated his (DS) accountability in relation to hers (the young woman). I presume partially in recognition of more typical dynamics, partially because she doesnt want to demonize, and partially because we're on a forum that jumps to things like "DH is an abuse and a nonce".

He wasn't a minor, the age of consent is 16 in the UK.

And the use of mummy and daddy was me taking the piss as OP felt it necessary to mention hubby being an accountant..it felt very much like the consensus was that the Son WAS being infantalised...by OP!!! She even refers to them as boys and girls ffs.

"I think people are also confusing the use of vulnerable. To me she is vulnerable as she seems unstable."

Yes but the fact she is unstable is evident from her behaviour subsequent to their casual arrangement; and many posters have criticised^^ op's son for exploiting a vulnerable person - when it's not clear he could have known that from the start

But the OP read the text conversations with "no", "no", "fine but casual" conversations?

I didn't know we were reacting to an imagined set of in-person conversations that made clear he was Tate-esque.

I think everyone would agree with you, if mum had presented this way from the start. But she didn’t.

I think people are also confusing the use of vulnerable. To me she is vulnerable as she seems unstable. If the harassment and sending explicit photos is true and he felt the need to block her then to me there are alarm bells that something isn't quite right with her.
Whether she is mentally unwell I wouldn't like to say. I think this is a good lesson to the son about not just taking things at face value (assuming she consented as it was all written in text, not considering the wider picture of her targeting him and persevering despite rejection and even being told he wants better - realistically how many people would still go there after being told they are good enough for one night but not good enough for more - especially having gone after him for so long).

You know you had the option of reading OPs posts from start to finish without responding to each one as you read them, right?

And I am not definitively saying he was coerced, but it seems like there were a lot of "no"s before she got her "yes, on this condition" (which she agreed). She certainly then escalated it to harassment.

But you view it as "six of one, half a dozen of the other, and best not tell the school".