Child contacted by pervert - who do I report this to?

[KittyAlfred]

My 14 year old DS has received a text message from an iCloud address saying hello, and asking him how big his penis is. This person has also found him on Instagram, taken a photo from there and put it in a collage of photos containing a picture of a penis. Clearly the idea is to make it look as if it’s my son’s penis, which it isn’t. This person is threatening to spread this photo to school, social media etc.

I suspect this is a random hacker rather that a local paedophile targeting my son specifically, but I still want to report it.

Do 101 even answer the phone these days? I tried to report it online but it’s not on the list of things to report.

what would others do? Is it worth bothering?

Maybe the NSPCC can advise? Then the police. This is horrific.

https://www.ceop.police.uk/Safety-Centre/

How awful I’d report to the police asap plus the school incase anything is released and to safeguard him a bit more if they know

Thank you - I’ve submitted a report on this site. Is that the same as the police, or do I need to report to them separately do you know?

Ceop and it’s time to review his privacy settings on social media.

I’m afraid I don’t know, but I would hope their response will make it clear what you need to do next. Good luck.

This is the problem - he’s way ahead of me in tech knowledge, I wouldn’t know where to start

When my son was groomed online we reported to the police via CEOP and they were very helpful. Good luck.

I suspect this is a random hacker rather that a local paedophile targeting my son specifically, but I still want to report it.

Another option is that it's some other kid who doesn't like your son

Personally I wouldnt mess about with this, walk into the local police station and tell them someone is sending a child pornography (which they are) and threatening blackmail.....this is very serious. After speaking to the police i would go into school, make it widely known that you will not drop this just in case it is someone from school doing this as it is more likely that it is someone who he has been in contact with.....Good luck OP

Yes it could be. That would be preferable. Much easier to accept a nasty little shit trying to be mean online, than some random pervert tormenting kids.

You need to get savvy quick to keep him safe. A spot of googling will show you how.

I would still follow advice above even if it is some "little shit" because if they do this to your son, they might well be targetting others and it needs stopping

Report it to the police asap.

This is my first thought too. This screams another child at school. Report to the school. Call the police. Maybe try your local police station too.

Of course you should report but my niece received a video of some weirdo (doing stuff to himself) and the school the police and social services got involved which of course is good but the police needed her mobile phone and kept it for 6 months and nothing came out if it in the end…

What is he actually threatening him with? Saying he'll share the photoshopped images if your son doesn't what? What does he actually want? That will give you some idea if it's a perv or another child.

He/she is saying the photo will be shared on social media, school etc. But it’s literally a perfectly innocent photo of my son, and the penis is in a separate photo, so as blackmail material goes it’s pretty crap, because both images would be findable online. There are photos of my son on school newsletters etc, and penis photos can presumably be found by googling.

There's nothing about what the sender wants, just threats that my son needs to comply with a deal. No idea what that is.

I've reported it to school as well as CEOP website, so I’ll just wait and see what happens.

That's horrible. Sorry to be pedantic OP but this isn't a hacker at all. A hacker is who logged in to your DS' account or devices, rather than simply taken publicly posted info off the Internet (even if his IG profile was locked and they gained access under a fake profile), made a collage on PicsArt or something, and emailed him from an anonymous email.

The reason why this is important is that the police will have a special team for hacking cases, which this doesn't fall under. If you report it to police, you want them to take your concerns seriously (and even without hacking, this is a huge concern in and of itself) rather than think you're overreacting.

I’m hoping CEOP will take it seriously.

you need to Google, watch YouTube videos, ask someone who knows or ban him from SM rather than him set up accounts with no privacy settings.

There are some vile people out there but I’m assuming it must be someone he knows tbh, I’d be tempted to inform them that you are handing the material to the police. It will do them good to have several sleep lights fretting about getting a knock on the door!

But I mean do actually report it.

I’d bet my hat that this is another kid at your son’s school.

I’ve passed the email address and Instagram contact name to CEOP so if it’s a genuine person rather than some random computer, then they’ll be contactable.

Are you sure is not sextortion? This is rife at the moment. Your son may not want to admit it.