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

I strongly suspect that you don't have the full story here.

If the girl is humiliated, it’s because of her own actions. Her behavior is deeply concerning, and I don’t see why she shouldn’t be held accountable for it.

have you really raised 4 boys in this time of social media and not closely supervised their phone use to the extent that you are now surprised that this is going on? I'd stop focussing on this girl and start focussing on how to remedy this, god knows what your boys have learnt about women and how they treat women without have close parental support to explain that the internet world and even the reality TV world of fantasy sex is not the real or healthy world.

Don't let school scapegoat this girl when it is not addressing a bigger issue. School needs something like this https://www.ceopeducation.co.uk/professionals/ceop-talks-relationships/

Who has given you this information ?

It was completely wrong what she did, but there was mixed messages. Even if he said 'I don't want anything serious', he slept with her, which implies he liked her to some extent, as the saying goes, actions speak louder than words. She did one thing wrong, it sounds like he was unpleasant to her many times, and to other girls too. I would personally be concerning myself more with his behaviour, and speaking to his school around the messages they are teaching these young men - as you said his mates were also similar in behaviour.

He also had to be prepared that he might become a Dad if he is having sex, no contraception is foolproof.

My daughter wants to go to single sex school which is paired with a boys school , I'm not keen as I think it can lead to a belief that boys and girls are different, and one believing they are superior to the other - hopefully a grammar might be better than a private for this, but I still have my reservations, especially after reading this thread.

he told her to stop he’s not interested multiple times that’s when she started sending explicit pictures.

has told multiple girls to not send him explicit pictures albeit in a harsh way saying “I don’t like you please stop sending me pictures”

He hasn't taken the initiative and blocked them so they can't keep doing it though, has he?

Indeed. As a young woman that enjoyed casual sex for what it was at times, I can’t say I would have expected a full psychological evaluation before being taken at my word. It seems a 17 year old male is allowed agency, whereas an 18 year woman must be considered a vulnerable mental infant.

He didn’t ‘use’ her any more than she used him. As far as he was aware, they were on the same page. Fair enough if she changed her mind afterwards, but that hardly obliged him to do the same. He very clearly told her no, which is something she should have accepted. Instead she chose to harass him with unwanted photos and communication.

Except here is the OP and husband driving the utter humiliation of this girl by sharing these photos with her school!

It is the boy's parents doing the real damage here. I seriously fear for this girl's wellbeing. If I were her parents I'd be frantic at the school's involvement and hordes of people now knowing all about this and seeing explicit photos of their daughter courtesy of the OP and her DH.

I believe that your son has learnt some valueable lessons

Sex can lead to a real or "phantom pregnancy" (late period ?) at every time

Sex without emotional attachment
Is easy to do, but can lead to problems.
Some people change their minds

The good thing is that he has spoken about things, rather than bottle them up

This girl is infatuated with the boy and her mental state is obviously fragile, getting the police and the school and the school governor's all involved may be very bad for her mental health.

I have it too and it makes me bloody furious that you link me with a girl pretending to be pregnant to get a boy's attention!

We're having enough problems getting people to understand ADHD at the moment, we don't need nonsense like this!!

But it’s not the first time she has done this and if it isn’t addressed, she will likely continue doing things like this/escalate her lies until she does get what she wants or seriously harms someone.

If the school were aware of it the first time around, it probably wouldn’t have happened again. She clearly needs educating/support, The school are hardly going to parade her out in assembly with her messages up on a projector to humiliate her, but if it’s not reported, she’ll just move on to the next boy.

Excellent post.

PROBABLY more to the story?

your son had sex believing he was using two forms of protection, and then deferred his university place to be present for an abortion, without any proof of pregnancy?

there is a whole hell of a lot more to this story!

if I were you, I’d not be focusing on somebody else’s child. Focus on your own. He clearly needs to learn to respect women, stop using them as pieces of meat, and talk to them like human beings.

very ‘boy mum’!

Sorry, are young people now expected to be psychologists and able to deeply analyse whether someone has low self esteem or if they just like no strings attached sex?

He says he did. It's his word. Only 2 X people actually know and 1 of them isn't the boys mother

He came to OP when he deferred for a year?

I find it absolutely astonishing how many people feel comfortable and righteous blaming OP's son. Outrageous. I'm very glad that I'm not a mother of sons.

I think lying about a pregnancy is disgusting and I don't think yabu to be angry about that. I'd find that hard to forgive.

However, I also think it's naive at best for your son to think most girls of 18 are cool with just sex. It's very well established that sex commonly leads to feelings of attachment and intimacy, so even if this girl was originally telling the truth about just wanting sex it's entirely unsurprising that she developed feelings afterwards.

I would just encourage him to enjoy his gap year, and be talking to him about the fact that sex always carries risk of stds (not all of which can be avoided with condoms), pregnancy and feelings of attachment (or, even worse, false accusations of rape) and is best in a committed relationship. Tbh I think his open admission that he wanted sex because she's hot, but nothing more, is pretty horrible.

My children are now adults but I would never have done them the disservice of behaving as you are.

Sheer spite towards this girl wrapped up as faux concern. Your true colours are showing OP.

These 2 young people had sex, evidently consensually, sending the photos was a mistake on this girl's part by my god you are making sure she pays for that and a stupid lie.

Shame on you!

Safeguarding doesn’t apply here at all. The girl is 18, an adult, and safeguarding only covers children who are actually under the school’s care. Being a resit student doesn’t magically turn her back into a child. Even when they were 17, they were still consensual young adults under the law, and her lying about a pregnancy still doesn’t make it something a safeguarding lead can touch. Safeguarding leads don’t deal with adult relationships, adult arguments, or adult lies. It’s not their job and it’s not their jurisdiction.

The phone you’re dragging into the school isn’t even a pupil’s device. It belongs to your adult son, who has never been a student there. A safeguarding lead has zero authority over an adult’s phone, zero responsibility for what’s on it, and zero remit to get involved in adult conversations. The fact the messages mention an 18‑year‑old student doesn’t change anything — she’s still an adult, and safeguarding does not cover adult‑to‑adult interactions.

Marching an adult’s phone into a school your son has never attended and expecting safeguarding action is pointless because it’s completely outside the safeguarding framework.

Your husband being on the parent association and being a solicitor doesn’t make this a safeguarding issue — it makes his behaviour look reckless. He’s trying to misuse the raising a safeguarding concern process under Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSIE), a process strictly limited to concerns about children.

He’s not “raising a concern”; he’s trying to hijack a child‑protection pathway to deal with an adult situation he doesn’t like.

Safeguarding leads are trained under KCSIE to shut down this kind of overstep immediately. And he’s not just overstepping — he’s putting his own position at risk. The parents’ association role relies on trust, professionalism, and respecting boundaries.

Misusing safeguarding procedures, dragging staff into adult drama, and trying to weaponise a child‑protection system for something outside its remit is exactly the kind of behaviour that gets people removed from those roles.

He’s stomping into a system he clearly doesn’t understand, waving around a job title that means nothing here, and trying to force professionals to act outside their remit.

And if her parents find out he’s been dragging their adult daughter into safeguarding processes she doesn’t fall under, they can absolutely complain — formally, directly, and loudly.

They can go straight to the headteacher or governors and report him for misusing KCSIE procedures and inserting himself into their daughter’s private adult life. That kind of complaint is exactly the sort of thing that destroys credibility and gets people removed from parent‑association positions, because it shows he can’t be trusted to act appropriately or within boundaries.

Safeguarding is for children.
This is adults.
The device isn’t a pupil’s.
The school can’t treat this as safeguarding because it isn’t — and if her parents find out he’s been trying to weaponise a KCSIE child‑protection process against an adult, he’ll be the one answering for it.