Just found out my 11 YO is texting with a person she met on a dating website

[AgentZigzag]

I want to start out by saying I take full responsibility for not checking her phone and seeing this earlier, I thought we had a sensible and responsible daughter and I've allowed myself to be misled by that thought.

She left her hotmail account open on my computer about a two hours ago, and I had a nose through her in and out box and found a change of password email from this teenage dating website. (it's always been made very clear to her that I could and would look through her electronic communications and history, although this was said a while ago)

I went to the site and found she had a fucking profile on there! And messages to and from other 'people'.

But there's one specific profile who she's contacted more, he's given her his phone number, and I presume she's given him hers, because we've just looked on her phone and they've been fucking texting each other!

In her email account she's sent him photos, of some drawings etc, but things that are obviously from a child.

He's sent her a photo of himself (which she thought she'd deleted, but I managed to get it back).

On the texts, and there are a fuck of a lot of them -

-She's told him she's 13

-Lots of talking about wanking and masturbating (even after she's told him she's 13) - which she asked me about yesterday because she didn't know what it meant, and you can see from the texts she's got no idea WTF he's talking about.

-She's tried ringing him tonight she's text up to 10 to 1 at night, and from 7 in the morning.

-She's been texting him all day today - when we've been there with her!

-He's actually messaging her NOW!

I'm holding DH back from texting him to say something, because I need some advice. DH is talking about the police (if there are any of the MN bobbies I know use MN, is this that serious do you think? Is it exaggerating thinking this is a 'man' grooming what he knows to be an underage child?)

I really do feel ashamed we haven't protected her from this. We're so aware of shit like this, we honestly are, and when they're 9/10/11 YO everything seems so open and you've told them the rules and think they understand.

We got the phone for her on a contract two weeks ago because her old one broke in the summer holidays and we wanted her to be able have an OK one for secondary school (which she's just started doing the 35 minute walk to and from every day).

I'm angry for letting myself trust her and her breaking it, and for not checking her phone sooner. I don't know where to go from here. Obviously she's not got the phone and I'm looking through her email accounts (she's got two, but I can't get into one).

And what should we do about this 'bloke/man/teenager' who's texting her stuff now? Ignore him, block him?

FFS, I'm just reeling, please tell us what you think.

zigzag - keep on top of it, youre doing great so far. {hugs}

doingupthehouse - you must take some action - have you reported this to social services, it doesnt matter whether or not the mother THINKS he is innocent, if he is on bail for this wouldnt social services keep the children safe temporarily?

AZZ- This is mt first post and just want to say my heart goes out
To you and your family. I hope it is resolved quickly for you all.
Keep strong!

Thanks again for your lovely messages (I'm a bit though)

Detective bloke has texted (which was an odd but good way for him to contact us) to say he'll talk about response officer voice mailing the internet random when he's round at 6.30, hopefully that's a good sign that it's not too bad a thing for him to have done. Or give him a chance to check stuff out before he comes round.

just come back to this thread after a few days - was the person identified? was it an old creep?

They've not looked yet bionic.

Looking forward to hopefully a more positive update after your half six meeting today. Fingers crossed this detective is more on the ball than pc plod.

This thread is just I am so sorry this is happening to your family but it also highlights how much we all trust our dc but they just aren't equipped for so much so young. I do hope that it turns out to be a silly young teenager & not someone old enough to know better.
The support on mn is truly amazing & I find it a real inspiration. People are knowledgeable about so much.

Im really shocked the police have been so useless so far. Really hope the bloke tonight is better.

Keep faith OP. This story was in our local news page. He didn't get caught because of one girl but because of the cumulation of his activities. Hopefully your DD's case turns out to be nothing like this but the police can prosecute.

Has there been any more contact towards your daughter, Agent?

None thankfully Pink, last one saturday night at 10.20.

I read the messages on her phone over again last night and he said he favourite song was three days grace, the animal I have become. We looked it up on youtube and it would tally up with the picture he gave DD. It could be part of a made up profile of course, but apart from the meaning you could read into the lyrics if we were looking to be worried (and if you looked at the lyrics of the songs we listen to you'd think the same) it did add up with the immature texts.

Isn't it odd he suddenly stopped texting?

We thought it was odd too (and so did DD because he usually carried on texting until she answered) and wondered what he was up to. But trying to be positive, perhaps he got the message when she didn't text and just stopped as well?

There was no indication we knew, she wasn't able to tell him or anything because the phone/internet access was taken straight away.

I have not read every post, but sorry to hear what has happened to you and your d, Agent Z. I wonder if you would think about contacting the NSPCC, because they have experience of dealing with matters like this, and might help you and your DD in relation to your dealings with the police, given that their approach seems quite unhelpful?

Thinking of you Agent, how did it go this evening?

Hope this evenings meeting was a bit more useful Agent.

Just wanted to add some more support in - so sorry you are having to deal with the odd reactions of the police on top of supporting your daughter and it sounds like you are doing a great job of keeping a balanced outlook. Hope you get some clarity tonight on what this guy was all about and what the "authorities" are going to do.

Well no information on the internet bloke as yet, it sounds a much more drawn out process than PC Twonk was making out it was, ie he was going to do it himself. This bloke was much, much better and was here for an hour and a half.

He did a face two or three times at what the response officer was thinking leaving a message (which he thought would probably have been 'This is PC Twonk from XXXX police, can you ring me back on blah') he said if the internet bloke does ring him back they'll probably tell him it was a mistake someone rang and they didn't want him for anything. He said the PC had written reams more than he needed to about coming round and was probably being over zealous trying to do everything himself, when he should have just passed it on to them. (we both noticed he didn't ask who advised us to write a report to CEOP )

He took some more details and checked some things I'd already said. Thankfully because DDs email is a hotmail address and she'd only accessed it from her phone, plus that we'd checked out internet history for the past month, he didn't take our computers He's bagged up and I've signed for him taking her phone.

He talked about internet security and letting children go on the net, that his own daughter lives with her mum and he'll be getting on to her to check her blackberry history (which you'd think given the job he does he'd be doing that anyway!)

The most interesting part was what they're going to do now. They're making an application to see who the phone/email belongs to, and look at the IP address, so if lots of the calls originate from one address they can be pretty sure the person lives there. If it's a PAYG phone, they'll look at where the top ups for it were bought and the CCTV of the time to see who it is.

If they get an address they'll get a warrant to take the phone/email and see what turns up on them.

If it's in a different county they'll have to hand the information over to their police, and this is where whether DD is going to make a complaint comes in. Apparently they'll hand over the information to the other police who'll investigate it whether she's makes a complaint or not, and if they find lots of other illegal activity on the computer/phone then they can arrest them for that. But if there's nothing else, then it'll depend on DD making a complaint whether they do anything about what's happened to her.

I think I understand it (and if anyone could explain it, and the repercussions of it, I'd be grateful) that DD making a complaint gives the information they'd be passing on more credence, but then it means she's committing herself to going through with what happens (even though she can withdraw at any time), but that would mean statements from us/her etc etc, which I'm not sure we'd be able to go along with because it'll be months in the past for her and dredging it up would be shitty.

But this could depend on what they find of course.

If it's a 'youngster' pissing about and there's nothing else on their computer then they wouldn't necessarily need to do anything else, but if it's a predatory and prolific older male and there's inevitably something else they'll get him on that. Would that mean DD wouldn't have to make a complaint in either case does anyone think? (if you ignore all the middle ground between the two)

He reckoned it could take weeks possibly months to look at the phone, but they're getting onto the blokes details straight away.

Oh blimey, that's a long 'un, sorry

Wow glad it's getting sorted. Hope it is faster than months though

I'm really glad you've got someone who knows what they're doing.

'If testimony from your dd might add to the possibility of catching a potentially serial child molester, you and she might be willing to dredge it up in a few months. If this is a one-off getting-his-kicks teenager, then maybe it's not worth it.'

That's exactly how we're thinking. He said give it a couple of days thinking over whether to make a complaint and he didn't really want to influence us either way, but that leaves us not knowing what making a complaint actually means and, well, why wouldn't we let her put in a complaint about it?

Does anyone know whether she'd have to make a video statement because she's made a complaint, or does that only come once they've decided/got something to prosecute him with?