To think someome should be fired because of this ?

[Valentine2]

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/jan/23/breck-bednar-murder-online-grooming-gaming-lorin-lafave

Just came across this heart wrenching story. Broke my heart. And fuming now that the police ignored the concerns of parents like that. AIBU to think some people must leave their jobs for overlooking and dismissing the concerns of a very worried mother? And many other parents of the mentioned kids group? It was so preventable.

Oh that's awful. So sad. Think I'll watch the programme with ds.

I read that earlier, absolutely heartbreaking. :(

That poor family

I just don't understand why they were not trained to recognise grooming like this? It's just incomprehensible for me. It was so obvious something was just not right and there were numerous alarms but the police just did not think they should do something ? A check on the server takes how much time exactly? This took away her son and possibly a very intelligent boy not to mention so many youths were robbed of their innocence by this one murder because they all trusted that monster as a group.

What do you mean by a "check on the server"? Do you mean the police illegally hacking in to private equipment to ascertain what was being said in emails? That is going further than GCHQ are currently being taken to task for. Would you be fine about them trawling through your emails on the strength of 1 complaint?

I don't think firing anyone would help, but I agree that more training's needed, or maybe for whoever takes a report like this to be told to pass it on to people who are trained to make the call on whether it's serious or not (like ceop).

I don't agree with the parents either when they say that it would have been different if they were reporting a girl being groomed, girls are ignored just as much as boys from what I can see.

It's a new phenomenon and it must be difficult for the police to spot what flags it as a risk/threat in the same way they would other more 'traditional' crimes where they have years of accumulated knowledge to draw on.

That doesn't excuse them missing things that should have been chased up though, especially as Breck's parents paid such a high price for the police's mistake. But there's no way the police did it on purpose and it's for them (or policy makers etc) to set up a decent safety net so these kinds of disturbing situations don't happen again rather than punish the people who contributed to this one.

If the police had checked their own records when Brent's mother contacted them with her concerns about Lewis Daynes, then they would have realised he was accused of raping another teenager in 2011 and would have taken those concerns more seriously. Lessons should be learned from this tragedy.

'Would you be fine about them trawling through your emails on the strength of 1 complaint?'

And yes, I would be totally fine with the police trawling through my whole computer/phone/whatever if a parent was concerned about the contact I had with their child.

I hate the 'if you've nothing to hide you've nothing to fear' line that's trotted out whenever anybody questions the state's access to private areas of your life, but when it comes to internet randoms having contact with (sometimes vulnerable) children then everybody should be whiter than white shouldn't they?

If they're not then it needs looking into doesn't it?

I totally admit I do not know neither head nor tail of what involves in checking where is the base of a certain gamer and whether it involves checking servers or not. But my point is this: in this age of computers, is it very difficult to actually put down a certain name on some kind of data base and check where they are based and whether they have a previous history of not? I think it would take less than half a minute if not less. I just can't imagine how this woman must be going back and forth between two universes every day , in one of which her son is still alive and thriving. 😣

There are currently 4 Lewis Daynes on Facebook, and 4 on LinkedIn. The mother only knew that name and where he lived because he told her. Which of the 3 or 4 (of this) innocent Lewis Daynes' privacy is it okay to invade?

I'm not defending the police here but it is hard to see what they could do without breaking the law. The stuff about "Lewis says" is echoed in dozens of threads on MN as "everybody in my class has... or gets to do...". Thats not illegal, its annoying. Lying about who you are on the internet isn't illegal except in predefined circumstances. Should an employer be able to go to the police with your CV and ask if its all true?

The Lewis Daynes' who didn't live in the place the Mum passed on wouldn't have to be checked out cdtay, because they weren't the ones the police were looking for (aside from the fact that he could have been lying about where he lived of course). Although it would have been cleared up pretty quickly if they had looked as they wouldn't be looking on LinkedIn they'd have been using their own databases, so easy to rule out who it was/wasn't.

The 'Lewis says' stuff you see on here is 99% about people the parents/DC know in RL (or who are in the immediate area anyway), so not really comparable to an internet random from possibly anywhere in the world/any age, and someone they can't get direct contact with easily.

A CV is hardly of the same importance as an underage child, and employers are quite within their rights to check out what's written on them, even to the extent of checking with the police for certain jobs (I think?).

Checking out reports of what someone's been up to on the net/comp/phone isn't as simple as just looking their name up (as far as I know).

For starters the person is most likely lying about who they are/where they are, meaning the police would have to find their IP address, then look at both ends of the conversations ie comps/phones (which has to be done properly if they're looking at gathering evidence), and that's just if they're in this country! If they're abroad our police don't have any authority and if it's someone up to no good they can re-route what they're doing all over the place so you can't pin them down.

(sorry for making my post even longer!) Again with the invasion of privacy thing, fuck it, let the police check out everyone they need to! This isn't the area to be making protests about the erosion of our privacy, especially looking at all the gazillions of way it's been chipped away already!

When it comes to predatory adults having access to vulnerable children there shouldn't be any privacy.

Adults using the net to gain access to children thrive on being in children's private space and it being a solitary thing children do.

I'd gladly give up all my privacy in that area if it opened up the routes these devious twats use to get to children.

In a Channel 4 documentary not long ago (about the documentary (mail link as it had most detail)) 5 men from abroad (and one from the UK who was operating separately, although weirdly his online persona ended up grooming the other men's online persona!) had contact with 18,000 children and had 30,000 indecent images of the underage boys they'd abused. Just the limited descriptions of the abuse they gave was appalling to hear and that's just one investigation.

I remember when this case first hit the news, and how awful it was. The poor boy and his poor parents and siblings. I sobbed my way through reading the article in the Guardian yesterday, especially when they mother was talking about imagining what Breck had gone through in his final hours.

I don't know if the police could have/should have done more. As his mother says, if Lewis Daynes' name had been checked against the Police National Computer, then maybe something could have been done.

The whole situation is tragic.

Oh god that's both heartbreaking and terrifying. When I think of my DS and his friends it could have so easily been one of them.

I'm not sure that sacking anyone will acheive anything but I do agree that privacy laws need to be looked at. I too would gladly sacrifice my right to privacy when a child is potentially at risk.

The police should habe contacted the game's community manager who wpuld have taken legal advise, been advised they had a duty of care and then provided an ip address and chat logs so that the perpetrator could be traced.
The ridiculous lack of technical knowledge within the police is the issue here.

As the mother said in the article she wants something positive to come out if this...we should all be learning and taking strong action if we suspect something amiss with our own kids or other kids for that matter...this guy used his real name, had a criminal record, concerns were raised with the police and it still didn't stop him.

Clearly chatting online is great (like mumsnet!) but children need to be protected by parents who understand the Internet and recognise when odd behaviour is forming in their kids. We should all make the time & effort to learn what kids do on their computers & phones with regular school training initiatives, online courses, or just googling 'how to keep my kids safe on the Internet' etc. it's got to be worth it, it's no good saying "I don't understand all this fangled computer stuff". Sorry for rant, this story has shaken me.

What struck me with this is that for once, it was so straight forward. The guy had a criminal history. He used his REAL name. At some point certainly, he made his location clear. The police could've done something or at least warned the parents and their son of the seriousness of the online relationship.

The wouldn't need to "hack into a server" - firstly the probably didn't need to as he was quite open with his personal info and secondly if Breck had agreed to allow them access to his computer they could've got the IP data from there and traced him. But as I say, I don't think they even needed to. All these people being groomed by people in far away countries you can do nothing about and this was so easy. Such an awful shame.

So sad.
Sometimes it is only when something like this happens that lessons are learned.
It is unlikely that the person mum spoke to was a police officer. If it had been their training might have made them more suspicious of the situation.

Murder Games: The Life and Death of Breck Bednar has just been on BBC3.

Fucking heartbreaking

Terrible and Lewis Daynes has posted an open letter on a blog (assuming it isn't a troll) minimising his actions.

I came across it today while reading about the case. Reported it to the police as no way should he be able to post anything online. He came across as so manipulative in the documentary though that I am certain he'd be able to get someone to post stuff for him.

Looks like Essex police are already onto it Alfie, Daynes has posted two and Breck's Mum reckons they're legit.

Even though I know there isn't a stereotypical type who do this kind of thing I couldn't help but be shocked at the way he looks about 11 in his mug shot when I first saw it in the news.

I thought that it must be an old picture, but maybe not. The whole thing is just awful. :(