People are making a lot of assumptions, so I want to clarify a few things.
When the allegation was first made, I did not automatically believe my son. If a girl comes forward and says something serious has happened, I think it is important to take that seriously. As a parent, I felt I had a duty to listen and not dismiss what she was saying. It was only after we went through months of messages that we began to understand the full picture.
The messages showed that she had been contacting him repeatedly over a long period of time. He consistently told her that he was not interested, that he did not want a girlfriend and that he did not want to talk. She replied saying they could "just mess about", but he still told her to find someone else. He repeatedly asked her to leave him alone and stop contacting him. He even apologised to her, saying he was not trying to hurt her feelings but simply did not want a relationship. At one point he even said, "I don't think messing around will change this."
She continued to message him, call him, contact his friends and ask them to tell him to respond. His friends' replies were essentially to tell her to leave him alone because he had already made his feelings clear.
I am not saying my son is innocent. He is not, and I have never claimed that he is. However, I also do not think the situation is as black and white as some people are suggesting. He repeatedly said no, asked for his decision to be respected and tried to distance himself. He stopped taking his phone out with him because of the constant messages and calls, never answered her repeated phone calls and even asked her to "please respect my choice." At one point, he became so desperate that he even offered to pay her to leave him alone.
Looking back, I think the constant pressure got to him. He is only 15 years old and simply did not know how to deal with a situation like this. After everything came to light, he admitted that he thought if they had sex she would finally leave him alone. Obviously that was a terrible decision, and instead it made everything much worse. I am not defending that decision or saying it was right. I am simply explaining what he told us and how he says he was thinking at the time.
There also seems to be a pattern at school where girls become very interested in him. I honestly do not know why, and I cannot control the behaviour of other 15 year olds. Adolescence is a difficult time for everyone, and I appreciate that these girls are navigating their own emotions too.
I do not want my son developing misogynistic attitudes, and we are addressing that very seriously. At the same time, I do not believe he should feel obliged to enter a relationship simply because someone else wants one. He has experienced several situations where girls have continued pursuing him despite him saying he is not interested. I am sure the attention boosts his ego to some extent, but the messages we have seen consistently show him saying he does not want anything serious and asking to be left alone.
As parents, I genuinely do not know what more we can do about that aspect of the situation. We can take his phone away, but girls still attend his hockey matches. They can still contact his friends and ask them to pass messages on. We cannot tell other parents to confiscate their children's phones simply because they are trying to contact our son.
We are doing everything we can think of, but I honestly feel at a loss. We are trying to address his behaviour while also recognising that this situation involved far more complexity than simply one person being entirely at fault. I do think if a 15 yr old is prepared to give you money so you leave them alone and not contact them ever again, there’s an issue than and he’s clearly very upset and distraught.