Help with sensitive issue (long)

[batcountrylife]

Hi, I've namechanged for this. Sorry about the textwall, but I don't want to drip-feed.

I need some advice and information over an issue that has come up.

About a week ago, one of my close friends from a larping (Live Action Role Play) community who I have known well for over three years abruptly disappeared. A few days later one of her real-life friends who I'm acquainted with posted on our larping forum that my friend will 'not be joining us again indefinitely'. This naturally had the rest of us all very worried and we all posted a lot of supportive messages, not truly knowing what was going on.

Immediately after, another of our larpers, who I'm less acquainted with, and who is a flatmate of my friend, also informed us that she will be away for an unknown amount of time.

This is when I started to panic a bit as I had no other way of contacting my friend. Up until today I have been really worried about what had happened. From what our mutual friend was willing to tell me, I got the impression that something horrible had happened, like she had been rushed to hospital with a brain tumour or something similarly awful.

It wasn't until today that I managed to get a quiet word with my acquaintance and ask her directly what was going on. She asked me if I really wanted to know. I explained that I was sick with worry and, having known my friend for such a long time, considering her one of my closest friends at larp, that I wanted an explanation, even though I admitted with it being a real-life issue, it was really none of my business.

My acquaintance was quite candid and I completely trust what she has told me, hence why I need to get my head around this.

Now, it turns out that my friend, who is 17 (nearly 18) and in the final year of her A-levels, is being investigated by the police for downloading indecent images of children.

Now, as shocking and confusing as this is to me, my first feeling was one of relief. I was just happy to know that she was okay and not in a coma or something as horrific. This also explained why the larp group wasn't given any explanation and why our mutual friends were keeping silent. It also explains why she couldn't post any messages herself (the police have her and her flatmate's PCs for investigation).

Then I started to ask about what had actually happened. I'm told that for her own reasons downloaded 'indecent images', and then went to the police herself, of her own accord and told them what she had done.

I just want to make it clear that she is NOT part of any circle of abusers, doesn't make the images herself or share them with others.

After being told this, I did some research online and it turns out that since the Sexual Offences Act 2003, the age below which images are classified as child pornography is 18 (it used to be 16 but was changed in 2003 to 18, apparently 'just in case'), even though the age of consent is 16.

Now knowing my friend, who is frankly a hormonal bisexual confused teenager (weren't we all), my guess is that she was looking for images of girls of her own age but got in over her head. Please, don't think that I'm trying to make excuses or her, but this is my genuine opinion of her character. I'm a bit older than she (mid-twenties) is so I'm a bit protective of my 'little sister'.

I know it's very unlikely that anyone here has been through something similar, I'm just really having trouble understanding why this has happened, and what is likely to happen next, what kind of sentence would she be likely to get etc? She is currently out on bail, and she has been suspended from her college. She was hoping to start university in September, and I'm really worried about how all this will affect her future. I am hoping for at least a suspended sentence, because at least then she can get on with her life, but if the worst should happen it will likely ruin her life.

I know some people will undoubtedly accuse me of trolling, but I've thought about that and all I can do is give you my genuine assurance that I am truly concerned about a friend and this is real.

It is to be hoped that the eggy fucker will roll away the stone in the next few days and bring enlightenment to us all, blowcushion.

In the meantime, is there any reason why you're googling Lars? Do you have thing for Scandi guys?

If you google larp or larping you might find a venue where you will be able to enact your very own Viking fantasy with a guy who's willing to be called Lars or Lief or Sven or... you choose!

If I'm not mistaken, the clue is in Live Action Role Play which, even if the participants are dressing up as and enacting 'I am a camera' in REAL LIFE is as unlikely to give them the skill to operate a Hasselblad as it is to equip them build or programme a computer.

If I have erroneously assumed that bat has known her now 17yr old friend since she was 14 and that, between their LARPs, the community stay in touch online I have no doubt s/he'll come back to correct me - presupposing that the righteous brothers sisters indignants haven't prevailed on the Towers to have this thread consigned to the ether in the meantime.

is troll hunting allowed here then?

surely its better to take what the OP says at face value?

I personally would avoid, try to distance yourself from the situation, because her nearest and dearest will try and downplay it naturally, because thats what they desperatly want to believe. No good can come of you getting too emotionally involved

End of the day its child pornography that she was looking at! I have used the internet for years, as have a lot of people i know, and i have never stumbled across anything remotely untoward concerning a person of questionable age. I dont understand how you could find it by accident, she must have been looking for it.
How well can you really know someone who you have met through an online community? its much easier to lie online.

i dont believe anyone that says theyve found it by accident either.

OH FFS there is a lot of hysteria and ignorance on this thread. LARPing is a social activity, people meet each other in the flesh and play games.
Also, 'indecent images of children' can include images that have involved no harm to any children whatsoever, eg pictures of naked children on a beach that were either taken without their knowledge or nicked from the original photographer.
THe OP's story sounds entirely plausible to me.

OK for a start it is not child porn if it is sexual. It is child RAPE that some perverted bastard took for either their own warped satisfaction or to pass on to others.

Now anything I have ever downloaded I have had to right click and save somewhere specific. It doesn't just jump from the internet/a friends server onto my pc. I clearly and deliberately have to click to save it onto my pc.

If the images are of a similar age to her ie around the 17/18 mark then it may not be as clear that your friend was trying to download images of child rape she could genuinely have just been looking for people around her own age and I can understand that she was not looking for 5 year old children being abused. If it were images of much younger then I am sorry your friend is completely wrong and very sick.

Hopefully the authorities will realise if this is the case and not be too harsh on her. Don't hold your breath though as my understanding is that women found guilty of the same crime as a man are punished more severely.

OP, this LARP-ing stuff . . . is it real life or just on the internet?

I mean, do you actually KNOW this person in real life?

The thing is, indecent images of children can sometimes be nothing to do with child abuse. What about a 15 yr old who posts topless pics of herself online, legally thats child porn but no abuse is involved, just her being stupid. I should think that images like that are also very easy to find.

There was a case a while ago where someone got done for sending naked pictures of themselves to a friend since they were underage, they got done for distributing child pornography.

Its not always as clear cut as indecent images = abuse.

Of course if she was looking at images of abuse then no sympathy whatsoever.

LARP = Live Action Role Play. i have a friend whos son is into it, he is autistic and he loves it - they dress up as elves and wizards and run about in the woods playing! - its all very harmless.

izzy - you are right of course - i came off nights yesterday so very little sleep coupled with 2 glasses of wine and - bingo - Vic talks shite.

OP - i understand your concern for your friend but it is impossible really to say how this will pan out without knowing exactly what she did.

Why dont you just give her a call if you want to help her? The police will have given her information on what happens next.

Oh I see, thanks Vicar and SGB. I thought it was online gaming where you have avatars etc. sheltered life So the OP actually knows this person. Although she was talking as if all the info had come through an online forum, so easy mistake to make.

And DinahMo was that troll hunted comment aimed at me? Because even if the OP has made up a cover story rather than say 'my son' or 'my daughter' I would not consider that trolling, providing the question and the need for advice was genuine. I was not troll-hunting.

To me, trolling is lying or making up an identity and forming bonds with people dishonestly purely for the purpose of misleading, mischieve-making and doing harm. I see no harm in temporarily name-changing and then altering some of the personal details of a problem just enough to throw regulars off your scent and to maintain privacy. I have done it a few times. I get the answers to whatever I need, then I change back again to my usual persona, no-one's any the wiser.

mischief-making, sorry!

I really don't understand why people have reported this thread. As a survivor of child sexual abuse myself, I am perfectly ok with someone seeking advice on a serious problem such as this and I don't see why people are so keen to hush her up. Do you realise how awful it is to experience something so terrible and to be constantly sent the message by "decent" society that you can never ever talk about it? The OP appears to have a genuine concern for her friend. There isn't any evidence that she is trying to draw out inappropriate information from other posters. She's described the situation very clearly, she's worried, and she's trying to get some reassurance.

OP as far as I'm aware the police come down very hard on this sort of offence and don't really accept any explanation. That's as it should be I suppose, although it does make me think that it has the negative side effect of preventing people who genuinely stumble across images (for example on a friend or partner's computer) from reporting them and possibly stopping an abusive situation somewhere in the world. Where I went to uni there used to be unit in the psychology department that investigated images of child sexual abuse. A postgrad student gave us a talk one day telling us that she found an awful image of a child being raped, and there was logo on the child's t-shirt. She investigated and through some really amazing, fine tooth comb searching she discovered the logo was from a children's baseball team in America. She found the team, and it turned out the coach has abused at least 10 different children on the team over a number of years. He was jailed and the children were freed from their abuser.

I understand that the police have to draw a very strict line on this and I suppose the downside to that is that if your friend was genuinely confused and mistaken then she's going to pay the price for her naivité.

Now anything I have ever downloaded I have had to right click and save somewhere specific. It doesn't just jump from the internet/a friends server onto my pc. I clearly and deliberately have to click to save it onto my pc.

completely wrong. there will be hundreds of pictures on your pc that you dont know are there, from every webpage you visit, stored in the temp folder of your computer. Thats what is classified as downloading images. You dont have to do it deliberately, or physically. It just happens when you visit a webpage

If your friend is as innocent as she can be in the circumstances - as in, genuinely looking for pics of people her own age and instantly reporting to the police when she comes across something worse - she should be fine. If she was looking at that shite on purpose, then maybe going to the police was a cry for help - it does happen. Let's hope it's one of those explanations rather than anything more sinister....

Some of the laws around sexual exploitation are sledgehammers to crack a nut. I don't know the solution, either. Not sure that OP knows full details though; if I was convinced my friend was innocent in her heart I would ring her up to offer support & not try to second guess the future.

Just in terms of what kind of punishments happen for being in possession of indecent images of children, a family member was discovered to have downloaded images of this nature onto their computer (we were all absolutely shocked and disgusted to find this out and have not spoken to him since). Details of the court case including his name and address (street name and town) were printed in the local paper, he was put on the sex offenders register (cant remember if it was for a specific time or indefinitely and he had to complete some kind of therapy programme.

As has been said, what counts legally as an indecent image of a child might well be an image of a teenager who consented to the image being created and/or uploaded the image to the internet him/her self, so it doesn't necessarily follow that the OP's friend must be a raving fiend who wants to prey on toddlers.
As far as I know the law does recognise a scale of badness in indecent images and, should someone be charged with downloading such things, the number of images stored might be taken into account as well.

Thank you so much izzy for being the voice of reason here. I think you have understood what I am trying to get across and I really appreciate your posts.

Just to make things clearer, as I seemed to have fudged my words somewhere, I understand that the police will investigate regardless of circumstances. When I ask for 'best/worst case scenario' I mean overall, when the case is in front of a judge.

I can confirm that she definitely does not have a credit card.

blowcushion/Hilly/Balloon; as others have pointed out 'larp' is a real world activity. We rent a cottage/hostel and meet up over maybe two weekends a month and act out the fantasy based storyline we write in nice, appropiate countryside settings.

Hilly; the "LARPS thing" is not a red herring. I am 25 years old. I do not have children. As I have said, I am here for some advice and informed opinions, not to have to defend myself against people's baseless suppositions. I was expecting suggestions that I was a troll, but not suggestions that I myself am the "freind" and therefore a paedophile. With good reason, I found that quite upsetting and considered flagging this thread for deletion myself.

I have not been in touch with my friend directly because we live in different part of the country, only meet up in real-life for larp and otherwise use the internet forum to keep in touch and plan our next larp sessions. I have also been advised by our mutual acquaintance not to contact my friend, on the advice of the police, because of my real-life job (I sometimes work with potentially vulnerable adults/children).

Dinah; I already have emotional investment in my friend. We've been friends for 3 years and I thought we had developed quite a close sisterly relationship - she would talk to me about her (quite personal) problems, etc. As I understand it, she, unrelated to anything that I have raised here, had a hard time with her parents which is why she now lives with a friend (who also had her computer taken for investigation).

puds; At the end of the day, technically if she took a picture of herself and looked at it that would be 'child pornography'. re: Sexual Offences Act 2003. Also, I have been on holidays abroad, I have never been in a plane crash, therefore they must never happen, right? What I am saying here is that your reasoning is logically flawed.

Xales; as I understand it, and depending on your OS, any image you view online is automatically 'saved' to you temporary internet files. No need to actively 'right click - save'.

"Its not always as clear cut as indecent images = abuse." - MadamFolly

Indeed, this is what I am trying to get at, and I am hoping it is the case with my friend, or perhaps she was looking for something that is perhaps morally and logically dubious as to whether it is 'child pornography', eg, people over the age of consent (16/17) but below the age of what is considered legal pornography (18), but found something worse that she was NOT looking for, and might I remind people, had the moral constitution to report it to the police, putting herself in the line of fire. I sincerely doubt anyone can criticise her for that.

Could I make a request that people people who 'agreed with Vic' and reported the thread now recant on that, as Vic him/herself as admitted that her hysteria was an alcohol fuelled, sleep deprived tirade of "shite". I ask this not to try and score points, but because I need this thread so that I can get useful information/informed opinions like izzy et al.

I was not saying you might be the paedophile bat I was just making the point that as a poster we do not know and recognise you must not get too defensive if people are a little cynical about your motives with an unusual story like this. We have all sorts on here making up all kinds of crap. For example, we have a 'Poo Troll' who comes on regularly and posts as a person with all kinds of medical problems/stories which invariably involve talking in great graphic detail about poo if you can imagine such a thing, and the stories all start off quite plausibly, and seemingly legitimate, but they never are! I was just saying don't be surprised if people give you the third degree - you could be anybody fishing for information, and with such a delicate subject matter we need to be careful, and be vigilant.

Nothing more, I promise.

But to ask about this on a parenting forum seems...strange.