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

Definitely don’t drop this with the police, they should be taking action!

Your daughter shouldn’t be without SM if she wants it, it can be really isolating to be a teen without it atm. Make sure all her accounts are on private and suggest changing her username to something without her actual name in it and her profile pictures so he can’t find the accounts. I hope you manage to get this sorted asap.

Please don’t contact his family or anything. I was harassed by an ex for months and was trying to get a non molestation order but as I had messaged his Mum in a moment of desperation it was seen as no longer being harassment as I had contributed to it.

I had thousands of messages I had ignored from various phone numbers, I had witnesses from work to back up the fact he would ring several times a day (I had to get a new job in the end) and had ran to get into my car every day because he was outside my house waiting - I had cctv evidence, I even had a video of him trying to pull me into his car. I called the police when I was trapped in my car because he blocked me in “to apologise”.

As he had never physically hurt me and I had sent ONE message to his mum asking him to come get him from outside my house when I was home alone and terrified (the police wouldn’t come because it was a public road and he was just sat in his car) it was no longer considered harassment because I engaged in it.

The police can be totally useless, and so many of them don't really seem to know much about the law in the first place. When I supported people who are victims of abuse and historic abuse, it was a horrible learning curve in how unfit-for-purpose the criminal justice system is at dealing with violence against women, and sexual abuse. (It's shit).

If they've told you he'll be arrested, push that. A few of the peopIe I supported were told that if certain people contacted them, they were to report that. They did report it. They contact/harassment stopped. If the law hasn't changed, it only takes two separate incidents of behaviour for a claim of harassment to be viable.

Whoever said to ask the police to confirm their comments in writing: good luck with that. I was incredulous at what some officers said/advised during abuse cases, but they insisted they hadn't said what had been noted down. When asked to confirm in writing, that was refused, too.

@Thisgirlcando

Those police were wrong. Make a complaint to the independent police complaints people.
I know it wont help you now, but it may help the next woman and those police need to be held to account for taking no action. A message telling someone to leave you alone, or a message asking for assistance from someone else does not negate harassment.

Please write down everything that happened, put together all your evidence and give them the report you made plus the officers' responses and submit a complaint. It doesnt matter if it was a while ago.

Thisgirlcando I'm so sorry, that's absolutely outrageous that the justice system failed you so badly.

I would close all her accounts down and set up new ones, being very careful who information was given to

Your poor DD OP! no she shouldn't have to. not sure what SM she's using but if she doesn't change it i'd set all her settings to private and make it so only friends can message her if possible.

I'd also speak to the police again...that doesn't seem right. he's been warned if he continues that he'll be arrested and yet he continues to do it and the police shrug their shoulders? do they need it to escalate further? it's stalking and harassment and it is illegal

You could try sending a solicitors letter to the parents (am assuming the boy is under 18) letting them know that you will be proceeding with a civil action against both them as parents and the boy if he purposefully contacts your DD in any way in the next year or incites associates to harass her. The civil court can issue an injunction against him and if he breaks that it turns into a criminal case.

Here is a link to the CAB

www.citizensadvice.org.uk/law-and-courts/discrimination/taking-action-about-discrimination/taking-action-about-harassment/

If the letter is strongly worded it might put the fear of God into the whole family and he will back off.

Could she change her settings so that her social media is properly private, and only friends can send messages etc?

Thanks all

Will definitely be on the case on Friday morning. I’ve actually found an email address on a business card one of the original officers left me so I’ve emailed ready for him to pick up Friday morning.

I’m going to go back through 101 and complain as well - there’s always a massive wait time so I’ll ring when I get home from work later.

He got inside her head, she rides horses and he told her she was shit, told her she was fat and ugly and all sorts. She lost her confidence in riding and had a bit of a crisis with it, her eating went to pot for a while. Back in the first lockdown her mental health was awful, she wouldn’t leave the house and even leaving her room caused panic attacks. We sought help and has been having CBT. She’s been doing brilliantly, but little triggers (like telling her she’s a shit rider) press her buttons. He can get to fuck if he thinks he can do that to her again.

She says she hasn’t seen or heard from him or his friends today

Why does she have to delete all her social media? Just make it so that people who aren't on her friends/ contacts list can't message her or see anything. You can do this on Instagram, FB and WhatsApp, not sure about snapchat etc but you probably can.

This happened to my mum (no violence, just the messages and physical stalking, along with evidence of emotional abuse) and her ex was imprisoned for 8 weeks. He also had a 3 year long restraining order. It took six months from break up to imprisonment. The police can act if they want to.

Hope the original officers act appropriately.

@MinnieKat wow! That's an amazing outcome. Sadly very rare but good to hear it can happen.

@Daytimetellysucks I wonder if you could get someone at refuge or women's aid to advocate for your dd?

To be honest, hard as it was for my mum ( I did a lot of the phone calls to the police myself and challenged him as well, the restraining order also applied to me although I did not ask for it), what this lad is doing sounds a lot worse. Mum was conditioned to her exes behaviour after several years and as such it wasn’t a surprise.

This is quite an escalation and should be treated very seriously.

I’m so so sorry for your DD, such a young age to be dealing with this. I have no helpful advice, my own dealings with the police sadly mean I would never report again or encourage my daughters to report.

Any (god forbid) future incidents I don’t want any record of because I’ll be dealing with it the old fashioned way.

I really hope you can make the police come through for her.

I could be wrong but it sounds like the second police officer thinks it's a case of teenage drama. In reality she's being harrassed. I would research harrassment laws and make an official complaint about the police response to this to force some action to be taken

Have you contacted the school and let them know he's at it again?

Hopefully Friday when the original police officers return something will be done.

None of the suggestions (private accounts,change number etc) deal with the actual behaviour, so there's no reason for him to stop. If anything, it becomes even more of a challenge/chase. Obviously you can't let DD be subjected to that kind of abuse so definitely go through with it, but at the same time the school and police need to deal with his abusive behaviour. He is stalking and harassing her. That is not acceptable and a crime. Your DD shouldn't have ALL the responsibility of dealing with it.

[quote lanatolater2]@MinnieKat wow! That's an amazing outcome. Sadly very rare but good to hear it can happen. [/quote]
To be fair, the officers who deal with it originally were great. I reported it on a Friday night, they phoned me Saturday morning and were round my house within an hour

They were at school at 8:20am on the Monday morning, spoke to the staff and were at the boy’s house waiting for him when he got home from school that day.

They went all over DD’s phone, laptop and Xbox with her and made sure everything was private and he was blocked on every platform

They were great with her, listened to her, made sure she understood it wasn’t her fault and were very gentle and kind

Shame they’re not all like that.

I’ve found a couple of local charities that support victims of harassment and stalking but they’re closed at the moment due to Covid so I’ll keep digging.

Thank you!

I feel for you and your DD, how nasty and worrying.

Unfortunately yes I would take her off social media but build it back up in a safer way. Go through everything and build more of a ‘firewall’.

It’s rubbish that she has to do this, and the boy isn’t being more strongly ‘educated’ as it were. I’d cause a huge fuss though, get on to the police again, the school and social media itself. Fire off some pissed off letters .

Sorry just seen your posts. That’s encouraging at least!

I think they think we’re making a mountain out of a molehill, I know they encouraged him to try and “take DD off her boyfriend” back at the beginning

What hope has this boy got with parents like that.
He and they sound pathetic

I'm angry for you!! If one of my sons behaved like this I'd be incandescent with rage.

Haven't read the full thread but I second those who are saying to contact a stalking charity. They will be able to give good advice and support and possibly also advocate for your daughter with the police, to get a better response.

Maybe try Solace Women's Aid - I believe they have a Stalking Advocacy Caseworker. www.solacewomensaid.org/get-help/other-support-services/national-stalking-helpline.

Or this one: www.suzylamplugh.org/Pages/Category/national-stalking-helpline