to think it shouldn’t be on my daughter to delete her social media?

[Daytimetellysucks]

DD (16) had some issues with a boy in her class. He had a crush on her, he asked DD out, she said no (not interested/she already has a boyfriend).

The boy took it badly and seemed to see her as some kind of challenge and subjected her to some wildly inappropriate behaviour, both online and in real life.

DD would block him, and he’d either create new accounts or use someone else’s phone to continue to message her or he would hang around outside our house hiding behind the bushes until she left for school or something.

I warned him off, DH warned him off, all her friends and her boyfriend warned him off, even her big sister and her boyfriend had words (and DD1 is enough to scare anyone) but he was completely obsessed.

Due to some additional needs that DD has, she has a mentor in school so we spoke to the mentor who had words at school, and we reported it to the police.

The police were great, spoke with school and visited him at home with his parents and warned him about his behaviour. He was clearly told that if he contacted her again, either directly or indirectly, he would be arrested.

All good. Her mentors have kept a close eye on it at school and all has been well for the last few weeks

Until this weekend. He sent DD a nasty, abusive message from a different number, and she then started getting some grief from a couple of his friends. DD blocked them all again.

I contacted the police again, gave then the original crime reference number so they had all the history and sent over screen shots of all the messages.

Their response - we can’t do anything, tell DD to change her number and delete all her social media.

We’re in the process of getting a new number, but she doesn’t want to delete her social media accounts, especially while we’re still in lockdown and she’s not allowed friends/her boyfriend over

She doesn’t post photos or anything like that but her friendship group all use Instagram DMs, group Facebook messenger and chats on WhatsApp. Her and her friends use WhatsApp video calls and revise together, she’s in a group video call and group chats for an Xbox game she plays so if she deletes all her social media she’ll end up cut off from all this.

I’ve gone back and asked for the original officers who dealt with it to look at it again - they’re on rest days at the moment so am waiting for them to contact me

Hopefully, once she’s changed her number they won’t be able to contact her via WhatsApp and stuff, but she hasn’t actually done anything wrong here so she shouldn’t have to remove herself from social media

@myfuckingfreezer I don't think she should have to do that either as then new friends can't add her.

It’s so sad that stalking and harassment are not taken seriously. Is there any way to get back in contact with the officers you spoke to previously? This horrible lad is learning he can get away with this behaviour and it will only get worse. Your DD has my sympathy

In the old days, someone would have given him a good kicking by now.

I very nearly asked if she has any big cousins/friend's big brothers?

My cousins offered to "speak to" my abuser after I kicked him out and he kept contacting me.

This is why I hate the police

The onus is always on the stalking victim to “prevent crime”. It’s like they haven’t even bothered to read past the social media aspect.

This creep has been to your house and waited in the bushes for her. How the fuck is deleting social media going to prevent him from doing that again? He’s already stalking her outside of social media. He already knows who she is and where she lives. He sees her regularly at school. This clearly isn’t an “online-only” harasser

[quote lanatolater2]@myfuckingfreezer I don't think she should have to do that either as then new friends can't add her.[/quote]
Yes they can, it doesn't preclude friend requests. Just means you can't message unless you're friends.

Was it a call handler who told you "just change her number" or actual police officers?

Either way, make a complaint.

Harassment is a course of conduct offence. It's obvious even to a lay person that the police do have powers and should have acted.

The response you got was unacceptable and the next time they trot that out someone could end up dead. Complain or they will keep doing it until someone dies.

I'm sorry your family is dealing with this.

This is appalling. She is being stalked and threatened, isn't that an offence?

Plenty of ways to lock down social media profiles but the real life threats are frightening.

Deleting or setting up new social media accounts and changing her number wouldn't make the slightest bit of difference I would imagine anyway. A new number is easy to get from a friend of a friend and same with the details of any new social media. Stalkers aren't deterred quite so easily as you've discovered. I'd keep reporting every incident to the police and I'd insist every time that they act to protect your daughter who is the victim here.

Tbh, I would be pushing the school to remove him from the class. Why should she have to be in the room as him whilst he’s under investigation for stalking and harassing her?

If I was her, I would post all his messages on social media. He needs to be outed amongst their peers. I would literally put up a highlight just full of screenshots and the story behind it.

I've been in a similar situation, but the woman targetting me found my address and doxxed me. Police told me to turn off my phone and delete social media. I was 18, living alone and very vulnerable.

It's absolutely victim blaming and it's such a shame that harassment like this isn't taken seriously. I hope this is dealt with soon and your daughter is ok. Perhaps you could shut down her privacy settings, and change her name to something only her close friends/followers would know until it's dealt with properly.

As the original police officers said he'd be arrested if he continued, I assume he has been given a harassment warning / PIN notice?

Further contact beyond that point is absolutely grounds for arrest, therefore the second set of police officers you spoke to aren't doing their jobs properly.

Your poor DD shouldn't have to put up with this, that boy sounds extremely disturbed. I have been through stalking as an adult and it's terrifying, I can't believe the police aren't taking a stronger hand with this. She's a child ffs.

Could your DD change her privacy settings to “friends only”? Messages from non-friends will go to spam.

Yanbu.
Women's aid suggested I change my number when xp was harassing me. I didn't.

Thanks all

Her accounts are all set to private, the original police officer went through it all with her and checked them all, showed her how to block him on her Xbox, etc

She has a disability and has a public account that she runs with a fellow sufferer concerning the disability - she enjoys in and thinks that raising awareness is important so doesn’t want to shut it down, but she’s going remove herself from it for a while which is a shame.

Some of the messages have come via people who she thought she could trust and have now been blocked. The last lot have come via WhatsApp from completely different numbers.

School have been great, they’re doing assessments at the moment and due to her access arrangements she does them with her mentor, he’s not allowed in the same areas as her at lunch and break times and they’ve blocked him from contacting her through the school email system.

Her mobile phone provider are sorting out a change of number so that should be sorted in the next couple of days and will hopefully stop the WhatsApp contact.

She’s going to sort out opening a new Instagram account in a different name as well.

It’s just annoying that she has to go through all this when she’s done nothing wrong.

It is not fair at all and I just wanted to voice a bit of support for you & your DD.

This situation and this boy's behaviour are absolutely not her fault and are completely out of her control. You have done all the right things by talking to the school and the police. You might need to take what PP have said on board and triple check all of her privacy settings.

Again, THIS IS NOT FAIR, nor is it right, but there is a fine line that many women have to tread in order to lead our lives safely (speaking from experience of changing number and job to evade my own weirdo).

Also if they gave him the warning, and told him the consequences, they have to stick to that surely else he'll just think he can do what he likes. Otherwise why say it on the first place?

I had this with an abusive ex, there was an order in place that he didn't contact me and if he did he'd be arrested. It was in black and white. Then he did contact me and they just kind of shrugged and said it wasn't serious enough for an arrest. What's the bloody point?

I don't think she should have to leave her support group either, that's awful!

Seconding the contact the Suzy Lamplugh Trust for advice and to highlight the ridiculous response from this Police Force.

Changing account bales and her number is a temporary fix, it only take one friend to give the details away and she's right back where she started

This was the official response to me when my ex stalked me and beat me up when he thought I was seeing someone else.

It was massively damaging to my career, let alone my friendships, but there wasn’t an alternative. They considered failure to comply as not taking it seriously.

I was granted permission to go back on after 18 months but warned not to post my location while I was still there and to use tight privacy settings.

I’m sorry your daughter is going through this too, and that the advice hasn’t changed.

If it were just me, I'd he making it public. Tweeting at the police using all the relevant recent hashtags about violence against women etc. I would have it everywhere, because the more it happens and the more we make it public, the best chance there is at action being taken.

But that's it it were me, an adult. This is a child (ok, a teenager but still) and it makes it much harder to be pushy and loud and opinionated about it.

The police said they’d arrest him if he did it again so why are they now saying they can’t do anything?
My uncle was told not to contact his wife; she had restraining order. He went round there (because his daughter asked him to as the mother was unconscious/drink apparently) and got sent to prison for several months. This was a while ago but surely those crimes have increased in visibility so I can’t see why the police are claiming impotence.

I'd contact his family and say , he has offended again. This is his last chance to remove/delete every single offensive message by *date and time. You hope for his sake that his parents will make sure this happens.

(Note, no threat; no conditions)

If that fails then get back to original police officer and press for the boy to be formally charged with sexual harassment on public media/
and let him and his parents take the consequences.

Many isps AUP T and C ban such use of their services, and many will shut down/terminate an account found responsible.

=

@TakeYourFinalPosition they told me this too! When I said I didn't want to change my number they wrote in the file that I wasn't engaging and insinuated that I was leaving the relationship open for him to return. They made me do a bloody course to prove I understood how to leave an abusive relationship even though I'd left immediately, contacted police etc. All because I wasn't willing to change MY life around. The onus should be on the abuser/stalker/perpetrator

Set it to private. Properly private, no friends of friends. Get back onto police and if you still get nowhere, ask who you complain to as sexual harassment of a minor is not acceptable.

I know they encouraged him to try and “take DD off her boyfriend” back at the beginning

Ugh, how appalling. His behaviour is nasty entitled toxic masculinity. His parents should be ashamed of themselves.