16yo ds seeing much older man in London, ds1 has made it 100x worse, dont know what to do know

[kettleonbutnoidea]

i dont even know where to start tbh this has all come out in the last couple of weeks and i feel like im constantly on the back foot

my ds2 is 16 (17 in summer) and has been talking to someone online for a while which I DIDNT KNOW about until recently. turns out its a man in his 30s living in london. ds says they have “met a few times” which actually means hes been getting the train down there on his own. i only found this out because his brother saw messages on his phone

before anyone says yes ive had the talk about safety etc but hes insisting its all fine and that hes happy. says im making it weird and that age is just a number which hasnt exactly reassured me

then ds1 (22) completely lost it. tracked the man down online and basically messaged him threatening him. i dont know exactly what was said but it was bad enough that the man replied saying he’d go to the police if it carried on. now ds2 is furious with all of us, says weve embarrassed him and is barely speaking to me

since then hes even more secretive and has said hes going to stay in london “for a bit” over easter. i feel sick writing that but i dont know if i can physically stop him and im worried if i push too hard he’ll just go anyway and cut me off

im stuck between thinking this is completely wrong and also not wanting to drive him further away

AIBU to be this worried or do i need to back off a bit now its all blown up?

Than who? A young man?

Her son is 16 so over the age of consent.
What crime is being committed to call the Police?

This woman has posted on here for support and your response is because Ringo. I presume Starr had a partner 17 years younger it's all ok? I'm cringing inside out at this post

@ByBreezyUser If you were to read my post just a little bit more carefully, you will see that my point is in response to @Carla786 who brought up the change to the age of consent in gay relationships and wondered whether that was a good or bad thing. I was giving an example of how age gap relationships were viewed when I was of an age to be in them and saying that society's views have changed. I did not express my own view on the matter because I think that would not be pertinent to the point I was making.

Please try to refrain from mind reading other people's comments - you seem to impute thoughts/motives to others quite often on various threads I have seen - and in my opinion, you often get the wrong end of the stick (others may disagree). Most people, in my experience, quite explicitly say what they mean and mean what they say. As for me - when I'm expressing an opinion, everyone will know quite clearly what I think without you having to interpret for them.

Oh so you've been reading my post history. Clearly. As I have never seen you post on a thread I have been on.

Big whoop. I still think posting those song lyrics was flippant and inappropriate. I get the wrong end of the stick do I? I've not gone looking through your posts. Better things to do.

If your DS is still in education, you can speak to the safe guarding team at their school, college for advice.

This may become grooming related to county lines drug trafficking or other illegal issues

Grooming is only an offence if the victim is under 16. Unless OP's son started talking to the older man before he turned 16, no offence has been committed. Even if it did start earlier, whether there was an offence depends on the nature of the conversation.

People throw the term paedophile around a lot, mostly incorrectly. It refers to adults who are primarily or exclusively sexually attracted to prepubescent children. A 30-year-old being sexually attracted to a 16-year-old does not make them a paedophile.

I understand OP's concern, but nothing she has posted suggests that any offence is being committed so, unless there is more to this, the police won't be interested. Her son is over 16 so can consent to sex with anyone of any age.

There are specific provisions for children 16 or under.

But a 16 or 17 year old may still be targeted for child sexual exploitation purposes. If so a perpetrator can be prosecuted under different sections of the law: eg abuse of position of trust - teacher carer coach; illegal imagery making/distributing - a common component of grooming - is illegal under 18.

Child sexual exploitation in this age group (16-17) is covered by statutory duties under the Children Acts 1989 and 2004. The College of Policing Authorised Professional Practice Guidance makes clear that even if the child has reached the legal age of consent - police (and SS) have a duty to protect them from child sexual exploitation as they may still be subject to significant harm.

Consent is key. As defined in the Sexual Offences Act 2003 consent requires the freedom and capacity to make that choice. In grooming cases a young person’s capacity to consent is undermined by virtue of imbalance of power - and manipulation or control may be used.

There is a massive massive culture of older men dating teens in The gay community. It’s considered a right of passage and very normalised. I wish someone gave a shit as no one would think was ok if it was girl and they’d be rightly seen as weird and shunned by most adults. Not socialised with by his peers!

People do give a shit. I don't know anyone who thinks this is okay.

DS's first serious boyfriend when he was 19 was 24 and I thought that was too big a gap. I remember him sulking that he'd had to attend a tedious party with DS's ex school friends and they were all so juvenile. I said, 'What do you expect? They are teenagers.'

But there is a reason why age gap relationships between girls and men are frowned on even more heavily. The danger of teen pregnancy and being dumped or cajoled into marriage by a manipulative selfish twat when you are barely out of childhood yourself.

Find one person on this thread who thinks this is ok?

Find one person in life who thinks a 16 year old teen dating a 30 year old adult (using the word dating loosely) - is ok?

Whilst this is true, OP has not suggested that the 30-year-old is in a position of trust, nor that there are any indecent photos of her son. If the 30-year-old is in possession of such photos then yes, a crime has been committed.

The fact that the individual is 30 does not, in and of itself, mean OP's son did not have the freedom and capacity to consent.

I would be very unhappy if either of my sons at age 16 had got into a relationship with someone twice their age. But I stand by my view that OP has not said anything that suggests a crime has been committed.

Having said that, I am disappointed that, despite debating it a number of times, Parliament has not yet done anything practical to give 16- and 17-year-olds greater protection from predatory adults. They should.

I’m not suggesting he’s in a position of trust, simply giving the context.

As to photos we have no idea. It’s quite common in sexual relationships. The point being that due to DS’s age it would be an offence if this man has any.

Equally, the issue is whether DS developed a genuine if age-imbalanced relationship with this guy or whether he was specifically targeted for sexual purposes due to his age.

The issue around consent relates not to the fact that he is 30 but whether grooming has been involved. If so DS may not have had true freedom and capacity to consent.

I am not talking about women on mumsnet. These men are not social pariahs hiding in a corner. They have friends and lives and community. It’s not like they keep it secret. So they and those around them are clearly comfortable with it.

I dont believe this, it doesnt sound like any gay community I know.

This^

They won't do it because it would mean criminslising many people. At 17/18 it can be easy to pretend you are 19. You would be allowed to have a sexual relationship with a peer, so why not with a 19 year old? Chances are the under 18s wouldn't testify.

The gov made attending school or college compulsory for that group and look what has happened - no one gets prosecuted for dropping out. They can't put laws people are going to ignore and they are not going to enforce in place.

Make your son watch this documentary about Breck Bednar.
Or at the very least make him look up the story. There are probably hundreds more like this.

So she should make him lose his job as well? You also cannot lock a 16 year old up, pretty sure that would be illegal.

Exactly this is the sort of support around healthy relationships he needs.

The 'best' case scenario would be that this boy has this dalliance/fascination/crush or whatever on some older saddo and that fizzles out, he isnt forced into anything, he isnt controlled and coerced but its just inappropriate age wise

The worse scenario is that this man is a predator, sex offender, into sexual violence, has friends that he will introduce the boy to, wont let the boy leave, meets him at hotels, uses drugs or weapons etc.

So while the focus from mum might have been about the age of the man, its also about the lack of knowledge about who he is in a way that you would normally know when you meet a mate of a mate at school and have a relationshipw ith them.

You can parent them and yes let him lose his job, he's 16, shouldn't he be in fe? Instead of asking strangers on Mumsnet, she should actually do some parenting.

I'm not sure if this is a part time job around schooling (not sure if I missed it), but even if he only does this job, making him lose it is just going to cause more issues for him.

'Why did you leave your last job?'
'Because my Mum wouldn't let me go'?

I understand what you are trying to say here, but that is not how things will play out. He could just leave home and go and live with this man if it's not dealt with properly. There's nothing the OP could do to stop him because he's 16. then she'll have no idea what's going on. She's having to walk a tightrope here.

For me the first thing I'd be doing is trying to gather the information needed to do a Sarah's law check, then as much other information as I could find. Even if it meant I had to pretend I wasn't disgusted by the vile predator.

I'm not an expert, but I very much doubt the police will be interested as there is no evidence of anything illegal here as far as I can see. My advice would be to keep DS and this man as close as possible. Don't try to ban anybody from anything, don't get overly angry and insulting, keep lines of communication open, make your DS feel he can still talk to you.

When I was 17 I started a relationship with a man in his early 40s. Yes it was awful behaviour by him and in retrospect I am really really angry with him. It went on until just after by 21st birthday and really messed up my students years (socially at least). My parents were clearly not happy, but mostly kept pretty calm about it. If they had gone mad, threatened him, banned me from seeing him, I'd have just stopped all contact with them, which would have been much more dangerous.

I think it must have been incredibly difficult for them, but I think on the whole they did the right thing.

Well the normal thing in most relationships would be to meet the partner. HRTFT so I expect this has been said, but could you ask to arrange that? Explain your fears and that you just want to be reassured. There is a big difference between a serious but age gap relationship, and a grooming scenario. Your DS must know about all the risks etc, if you explain you are ok with it as long as the guy is legit, he might be happy to smooth things over?

Although if the person hasn't responded positively to DS1s accusations then maybe he really isnt legit.....

Good luck!!

Sadly I think more straight men than we think would do this (date 16, 17yos) if it were not frowned on, as it luckily is. Agree that it's wrong whether they're dating a 16yo boy or girl.