Advice for DD - being harassed and blackmailed

[NigellaAwesome]

I would value thoughts on how to advise my 18yo DD who is very stressed by a situation that has developed involving a guy from her friend group.

From what I can tell, his nose is out of joint as he feels his position in the group is threatened by her. I have never been particularly impressed by the people in this group - a term I use loosely as it seems to be quite a wide network of people who go to the same venues. None of them seem to be particularly high achieving or doing much with their lives and there always seems to be a fairly high amount of drama.

He has started making allegations that DD sexually coerced him and has been messaging both her and mutual friends saying that she is a sexual predator, and that if she doesn't back off from the group he is going to 'drop an instagram post exposing her as a sexual predator.' She has screenshots of these messages.

She is very stressed and terrified he is going to do this. As far as I can make out, they had a a bit of a fling a few months ago, and then she wasn't interested. Apparently he has done this several times before, and she unquestioningly believed him when he posted this about other people. They have about 150 people in common on social media. This has been going on for about 3 or 4 weeks, and he seems to be obsessed with it.

She has drafted a cease and desist letter that she asked me to post on her behalf, but I have reservations that this is the right course of action and have said to her I think she needs to take a few days to think things through. I think this could inflame issues and he could post a copy of the letter itself on to social media.

I think her options are as folows:

1. Send the cease & desist letter - with the potential that it inflames things and feeds into this guy's obvious need for drama.
2. Get a solicitor to send a cease & desist - same potential issues, but he might take it a bit more seriously.
3. Report him to the police for harassment - again the potential for drama and escalation. Potential for this guy to make counter-allegations of sexual assault and DD being investigated for it. Regardless of evidence or lack thereof, police would be duty bound to investigate and it would cause huge amounts of stress.
4. Seek advice from the police but not take any action at this stage - so at least there is a record of her concerns.
5. Ignore and do nothing. Ask her friends not to tell her about any comments he makes to them about it. Try to distance herself from the group and develop new friends / hobbies.

Am I missing another course of action? He has blocked her on everything so other than writing to him, she can't contact him directly. He is effectively emotionally blackmailing her. She was the victim of a sexual assault several years ago, which he knows about and I think he is weaponising her history against her. I think this is why it is impacting her so much.

I would be grateful for words of advice and ideas.

I’m really sorry this sounds awful OP.

My understanding is that she does need to tell him to stop before the police will consider it as harassment. So the cease and desist seems like a good idea. Then if he continues, she goes straight to the police.

I would go to the police now re this matter and seek their advice.

I'd say 5. If people believe this nonsense they're not worth being friends with anyway.

I would seek advice from a solicitor they will possible provide some free advise to her first. Sounds like he's risking harrassment and slander

Go straight to the police.

He is already breaking the law on many fronts multiple times from a coercive control and harassment perspective.

She needs to get this reported ASAP - so that he can be investigated.

Any comeback from him re SA will likely be viewed as a vexatious and malicious revenge.

https://www.stalkingawareness.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/LE-Tips-Identifying-SLII-Stalking-Behaviors.pdf

What group is it, do they have moderators you can report him to., if she wants to report it officially then either report his cyber bullying and threats the police or a solicitor. He will only mock your letter, her true friends won't take any notice. Do not contact him directly and block him, nutter.

Straight to the police.

Another one for reporting him to the police.

Straight to the police and also get a solicitor to send a cease and desist letter. If he does retaliate it shows from the start that she is adamant that his allegations are malicious. Trying to appease him only prolongs this.

This. All this and read the link.

There's no subtle or discreet way of dealing with this attention seeker, any attempt at placating him will never be enough.

When she reports to the police she needs to add context:

1. that he has done this before to other girls.
2. that she has a history of SA that he knows about and is exploiting.

She needs to go to the Police asap. This creep will not stop until someone stops him.

AFAIK blackmail is illegal, go straight to the police.

Yep. Police. I'd go down to your local station together asap.

Police definitely

Thank you. Me & DH have just chatted about it with DD. I think we are going to seek advice from the police in the first instance, followed by a solicitor's letter.

His threat is that he is going to post to his instagram story and he has about 1.5k followers, of which 150 are mutual acquaintances.

This is a UK link about stalking (what he is song can be considered as stalking). The advice is report to the police. You can do this via 101.

www.gov.uk/report-stalker

Report him to Instgram too

Absolutely get in first. He sounds awful. Either way it sounds like she could lose friends. But his actions have consequences

Definitely speak with the police. They can do a visit and give him words of advice. If he then persists it shows how far he is going to take it and they’ll take it more seriously.

I personally would do 5 and would tell my DD to drop this bunch of losers like a hot potato.

Agree with talking to the police. They might recommend a non-molestation order, in which case call the NCDV: https://www.ncdv.org.uk/contact/

Report him to the police without delay.
Hopefully this will scare the shit out of him at the very least or may even result in prosecution which is what his behavior deserves

Option 2, 3 and 5.

This is the modern day version of not sleeping with a bloke so they tell everyone you're a slag. It's the oldest trick in the book.

Try and help her feet on the ground, help her feel as safe and grounded in real life as possible. If you can get her to come for a night or two away with you in a spa, just so she can get a bit of phone free perspective, that might help.

This is what he is doing ‘sextortion’ - if any of these threats happened before your DD’s 18th birthday it also comes under CSA as even though the age of consent is 16 - young people are protected for another couple of years from coercion, abuse and grooming.

https://www.met.police.uk/advice/advice-and-information/sexual-offences/sextortion/