DS1 (Yr7) was staying over with some of his friends over the weekend. He didn't take his phone with him because I don't like him having it in group situations as we've had trouble in the past with some of his friends.
I sometimes look at his messages to check for content. He knows this and it's a condition of him having a phone.
I had a look last night and there were some messages to a group chat that were really horrible coming from the sleepover. Some appeared to come from my son on his friend's phone but it was not language I would expect 11 and 12 year olds to be using, and certainly not him.
There were also messages from DS1 yesterday morning (when he got home) saying that the messages weren't from him and that this boy had been sending messages by himself, pretending to be all three of them.
I confronted him about it last night and he denies sending the messages, knowing anything about the messages and says the first he knew about them was when he got home and saw them. He seemed genuinely upset.
I do believe him. He knows my feelings on abusive text messages, and he knows I always find out about them. We've also had trouble with this boy sending nasty messages in the past and I made a big deal of it.
I don't know what to do. Either DS is cyber bullying, or is a victim of this boy trying to stitch him up. There is no way of me knowing.
The last time something like this happened, when this boy was sending nasty messages and DS1 knew but didn't stop him, DS1 lost his iphone for a week.
If he did send those messages, then he is in big trouble, but if he didn't, then it doesn't seem right to punish him.
I've asked the Mum of the other boy on the sleepover to talk to him and see if their stories match up (because he wouldn't know the boy sent the messages either).
What would you do?