Twelve-year-old sent pornographic WhatsApp meme after argument: who should I inform?

[Noonoo291]

My son had a little spat with one of his friends yesterday (nothing serious). The friend got one of his friends to spam my son on WhatsApp. It started off with a little bit of name calling, with my son replying asking who this was. The boy then sent my son a pornographic meme (he's 12). We were out together at the time and I saw it immediately as did he and he was really shocked. He told me later he felt a bit traumatised over it so we talked about it and he's ok today. He's now friends again with his friend and blocked the other boy.
My question is, where do I go from here? Tell the school? Tell his friends parents? Find out who the boy is and tell his parents? Tell the police? I think he deleted the chat but I'm going to have a look tonight, so no evidence as such

You inform both the school and the police as it is a criminal offence. Don't brush this off as that other child probably needs SS involvement. Children being able to freely access porn images is a safeguarding concern.

This website could be helpful: https://www.iwf.org.uk/resources/ai-child-abuse-imagery-parent-guide/

Not the parents.

school is a good start. They can look at it in assemblies and pshe (it’s incredibly widespread)

Needs reporting to the school as it is a safeguarding issue.

Did you set up this account for your 12 year old? Is it a parent managed account? If not change the settings and hopefully avoid any repeats of this.

No it's just an extension of his mobile number

That's what I thought. I know he's getting to that age now but it was pretty hard core

Not diminishing the seriousness but it was a meme. Graphic, but something I could imagine 15 year olds sharing. I guess my issue is that he's 12

This was not AI. Definitely real life

School, the website should name the safeguarding officer. They will have experience of this already.

Why is he friends again with a little shit of a child who got another child to bully him?

You report to the police as the person who sent it is above the age of criminal responsibility. You go to the police.

School and police. This happened to my DS and the police took it very seriously. The other kid got expelled and the police considered putting him on the sex offenders register for sending porn to a child, even though he was a child himself. I think the police scare the living daylights out of children to try and put them off ever doing it again.

Good. Hopefully prevent them becoming another adult man who does shit like this 👏🏻

It wasn't really like that. He's a good friend and they had a spat. The prank went too far. The other boy was horrified too

What is the age of criminal responsibility? I don't actually know how old this boy is

It's 10. You do need to let school know. It's a safeguarding issue, not just for your son. They'll need to consider how the other boy has access to the porn and he may need protecting himself.

Unless you are in Scotland in which case it's 12.

I think if you’ve deleted it there isn’t a lot you can do.

It’s 10 in England.

Excellent. Hope this happens to every boy who does this.

And this is a prime example of why children should not have unsupervised access to the internet!

Why does he feel traumatised? That’s quite a heavy world for ‘I didn’t like it’ - he hadn’t suffered trauma. It’s important that you bring him down a bit and whilst he obviously has been sent something that made him uncomfortable, unless there is a back story he hasn’t suffered any traumas. You will be doing him no favours by letting him think he has suffered trauma from this:

I disagree with telling the police, surely this is something the parents have to deal with before branding him as an offender

It's a safeguarding issue and should absolutely be reported to the police.

You need to tell school and the police in case there is abuse going on at home for the boy who sent the images. It's not normal 12 year old boy behaviour.