My 13 year old daughter got groomed on Snapchat.

[Sickofmodernworld]

Hi, my I had written. A very long post but i deleted it by accident before I posted. Il keep it shorter this time. Last summer my daughter turned 13, almost overnight she became angry, violent, withdrawn and refused to go to school. We checked her phone weekly but now she put up a physical fight but we would always get ot sknehiw and never found anything untoward or alarming.
We begain to think she had suffered abuse without us knowing as she exhibited all the hallmark ls of suffering abuse. As the months went on she became worse and refused to leave her room, interact with family and impossible to communicate with.
One January night we found out why, that night was the first time she seen me cry, I'm her dad, and was a night of relief but also one of the most harrowing of my life.
One of her friends had the courage to send my wife hundreds of screen shots of the most vile messages you could imagine in snapchat. She had been groomed and then blackmailed and under complete control of an unknown man. I could only read some of it as was beyond horrific.
It was sexual, degrading, encouraging her to carve herself and telling her she was wirtless and if she told anyone he would destroy her.
The moment we took her phone and told her we loved her more than ever and we're going to take the burden she was the happiest she'd been for a long time.
The police came and took her phone and over the weeks she went back to school and became happy, loving, girl she always was. She's had up and downs and needs councilling but she coped better than we did.
After 3 months the police said the animal was in Brazil but unable to do anything so case closed.
He hadn't been heard of since so we tried to put it behind us. Then yesterday he resurfaced, messaging her friends..
I created a snapchat and added him and he accepted, I told him who I was and after 5 minutes he eventually believed it was her dad. I told him I was hiring a digital forensic detective to locate him and expose him to all his family, friends and neighbours. He immediately shut down the account and nit been heard from since.
I will follow through with the threat as the police are of no use. I needed to get this off my chest and also hope it helps any parent in sane situation.
We thought we were vigilant and she had been educated on the dangers but she fell for it.
Thanks for reading my ramblings.

All I can add is if you are in this situation you have to take matters in your own hands, I wish I'd knew this in January. If any one needs I have a message from a legitimate digital forensic detective that you can send that will terrify the paedophile into hopefully leaving your child alone. If they are abroad they are untouchable by uk police and they most likely know that but they can be traced and exposed to there family, friends and neighbours no matter how careful they are if the device there messages were sent to is not taken and destroyed by the police .

Thank you for sharing and I’m so sorry to hear what your daughter went through. I hope she will recover and bounce back to her happy loving self.

I’m really sorry to hear this. I’m sure the Brazilians have police so go for it with the digital investigator.

Sorry to hear your daughter went through that!
I think barely 13 is still very young to be accessing all these online chat platforms.
They don't know how to protect themselves at that age.

My daughter insists she uses snapchat for filters only. Is there anything on Snapchat where I can see whether she is having conversations, considering messages get deleted automatically?

so sorry to hear about your DD OP 😔

NO. Snapchat is a nightmare from a safeguarding perspective, it has very very few parental or digital safety controls. Just delete it from her phone, block it and accept she’ll be unhappy about you doing that.

Your dd has a really good really brave friend. That’s my take on this and I’m so so glad she spoke up.

Smart phones are the scourge of society for kids and adults and I agree, social media should be for strictly adults but we were naive. Despite almost daily checks of her phone, not allowing her Facebook and Instagram we didn't understand how easy it is fir teens to hide what they want from parents who grew up without internet and apps. I'm fully educated now and only posted this as a warning and hopefully to help as we made the biggest mistake of our lives allowing this to happen and il jener forgive myself. My mother in fact works for a charity dealing with real and online abuse and drummed into my daughter from day 1 about what happens but sadly young children going through puberty begin to believe they know better and are very easily manipulated. Il never forgive myself and struggle to speak about it to my mates and family but unless you live in an Internet, device free household I cant see how you can prevent it unless you only allow them to use a phone whilst your sat over them. I despise all social media and after speaking to a friend of a friend who works in the NHS adolescence mental health sector says they are overwhelmed with an epidemic of mental health problems with a majority stemming from social media. Just hope my post helps anyone as iv silently suffered fir the last 6 months and it's ripped my heart to bits. Il sell my house though to track him down and expose him now as iv realised there's no help.

Sorry to add, there is more about Snapchat that’s terrifying than just the fact that messages delete. Were you aware that unless you change the settings the defaults allow:
a) anyone can contact you even if they are not on your friend list
b) any ‘friends’ are able to see your location
c) you will be recommended as a ‘quick add’ to anyone who has one of your ‘friends’ as a mutual

They have introduced a few safety features, like if the user correctly sets their age then there is a rule preventing adults from making friends with under 17s, but even that is full of holes because the rule is waived if you have more than a certain number of mutual friends and there is no age verification so if a kid has created an account with the wrong year of birth then it’s not effective anyway. There’s also the ability to create an account and link it to your child’s, that enables you to see an overview of their activity like who their friends are and who they’ve contacted in the last week, but not to see the content of those snaps.

This was a very sobering read. I'm so sorry for what your daughter has been through and as a parent I can only imagine what you're feeling 😔 I'm so glad that she had a good friend who did the right thing and brought this to light.

I can only hope that parents of young teens reading this will be deleting Snapchat and any similar platforms from their children's phones if they are using it. Social media should be banned before the age of 16 I think. My children grew up before the era of social media and I'm so glad they did as I do think it's a nightmare to navigate for parents.

That's what we thought but we were very wrong. Google it, it's a playground for paedophiles as its very anonymous and easy to change usernames etc. Don't know what to tell you except if your daughter wants to hide stuff from you on snapchat she will. Snapchat don't care and don't help and I believe it takes subpoena from the fbi or equivalent in Europe for them to reveal ip address and user details. If I was you I'd get on the app and try and monitor it as if you ban your daughter she can simply delete and reinstall the app if you insist she doesn't use it. We were more concerned with tracking her were abouts with her phone when she was our but the real danger was the phone. It's literally every parents worst nightmare. Things were alot simpler in the 90s when i grew up, it's horrific now.

Wishing you and your family the best.

I'm a retired teacher and had to call in child protection when an adult male tried to groom two of my 13 yr old pupils. (He sent an inappropriate picture and one of the girls showed her phone to me.)

Snapchat is extremely dangerous, in my view.

Thank you so much @Sickofmodernworld for sharing your terrifying experience. I wish you and your family all the best in recovering from this.
Snapchat will be deleted.

My mother said the same thing. The danger was visible but people looked out for kids and the risk was massive for the local paedophiles to abuse children, now it's low risk and very easy. Until every parent in uk screams for a ban I can't see anything changing soon. Thanks fir kind reply, it's easy to judge other people's parenting but this is on a mass scale but not talked about enough. We have a 2 year waiting list to get help as they are overwhelmed and even going private is proving difficult as they all full up for at least 6 months.

The police say they are unable to.do anything due to his location. They were very cagey as to why the Brazilian police wouldn't do anything, to be honest they were useless. Il hire my own Investigator, finfmd his identity and expose him to his family friends and community. That's every paedophiles worst nightmare but it's my only option. Iv threatened it and he has stopped for last 48 hours but if he resurfaces il go into debt and follow through. I wont say what I'd do if he was in the UK and I knew were he was....

This is horrific, I'm so sorry you all went through this and it's testament to your character you've came on here to raise awareness of the dangers.

There is absolutely no reason any child needs a smart phone or access to social media, I really wish parents would model responsible internet use and hold a firm boundary on this. It is so easy, like in this case, for something to go wrong otherwise.

Thankyou, just be careful, it's easy fir them to delete and reinstall app as they need and hide anything they want. Never in a million years did I think this would happen, my goddaughter is a highly intelligent, caring, kind girl that was educated on the dangers of online grooming but she had a bad few months with bullying at school, became vulnerable and seeked love and attention online which she got until she was coerced into sending pictures.. she then bevane the victim of the most non physical horrific abuse imaginable. It would turn yiyr stomach if you knew the full extent.. she has his name carved on her body fir example. It's destroyed my wife and iv dealt with it by self medicating to blot I out but we were slowly recovering together until yesterday but this time the trust wev built with our daughter last 6 months means she is being completely transparent and I'm dealing with it myself. My friends dint even know what's happened as I can't speak about it but writing thus has been therapeutic as well as hoping it will help one family. Anyone with teenagers in these times knows how hard it is.. I wish she was 5 years old again and by my side until bedtime as I'd die protecting her from evil and harm and the evil now is hidden. Good luck and thanks fir kind message.

Problem is when she started high school we could track her using smartphone as she needed to travel to school on her own and also didn't want to go to park with dad anymore but hang out with friends. Do you keep them prisoner and unable to contact friends and cause resentment and damage them that way or give them freedom whilst knowing we're they are at all times and able to socialise with friends in there bedroom? We had rules, internet set to child friendly, regular phone checks but she outsmarted us and the social medias dint care less. I agree teenagers would be better off without smartphones and apps but your child is the only one out of 300 kids in school without a phone they'll grow to resent you and find other ways to self destruct or if they got into trouble when out and didn't have a phone to get help I'd feel.as much of a failure as I do now. I was brought up very well but I used drugs and alcohol from age 13 as it was normal in school I attended in 90s. I got in many dangerous situations but my parents had no idea as soon as I left the house they didn't know were I was or who I was with. Every parent makes mistakes and some get away with it and others don't. We didn't, and all I hope is this post helps other parents make more educated decisions. Hardest job in the world.

Thank you for sharing your story. Has anyone mentioned letting the future in, which is run by the nspcc? You can check their website to see if they run it in your area.

I'm so sorry sorry your daughter went through that.

For anyone still not convinced about how dangerous Snapchat is for young kids and teens, watch Teen Predator/Online Killer Series 1: 1. Uncovering a Predator on BBC iPlayer. I will absolutely not allow DD to have any type of social media and watching that programme made me confident I am right with that.

DDs phone doesn't allow any apps to be downloaded without her dad giving permission from his phone, I can only hope there isn't a way she could get around that rule and download something behind our back but teens can be so sneaky with things like that.

I agree, but unless you take to and from school, make them sit with you all night then take there phone at bedtime they can delete and reinstsll app at will and hide that. My daughter before this I'd have never believed she could have lied, decieved and manipulated us the way she did but she was being instructed by this animal on how to do it. These sick, twisted sub-humans are mentally ill but also very clever. I hope you do a better job than we did bit all I can say is it's not as easy as you think unless your on it 24 hours a day. Good luck and I agree with what you say but it's not so easy in practice. I run a business and my wife works full time but monitoring a teenager is a full time job and if you did you may protect them from evil but cause other issues. I don't know what's right or wrong anymore except blaming the kids or parents is not the answer, the blame lies at the apps themselves and the government for not doing anything. If a Europe wide smartphone and social.media ban fir under 16s came into force tomorrow and police had the authority to take phones from any child seem with one or go and arrest anyone using a app they'd be accused of being like north Korea or the taliban. It's a problem.that isn't going away any time soon.

I wish we'd been more vigilante but we failed. I struggle with technology as I grew up without it and have a job that doesn't need computers. Yes your doing the right thing and I wish I could turn back the clock, hopefully thus thread and replies like yours helps other parents. Thanks for reply, this is very helpful advice I wish we'd had a year ago.

Thankyou will look into that. I hope this thread with replies like this helps numerous people before it happens. It's been the worst 6 months of my life never mind my daughter who is traumatised or my wife who has bire the brunt of the anger and despair of my daughter and dealing with police, school etc.

I'm so sorry your daughter has been victimised like this. I hope you get justice and that she can heal.

We use Google family link to prevent kids downloading apps without our permission.

Thankyou, this reply will hopefully help someone.