Schools attitude to sharing indecent images

[Greengirl3803]

Hi everyone- my daughter was pressured into providing nudes to a boy who then showed it all around school.
The police are investigating and a crime has been admitted and recorded.
The School refuse to exclude him, he's currently suspended, my daughter is now on medication and receiving therapy for the effects of his actions. She can't face going to school if he is there. So it looks like she will have to move. The School are completely unsupportive.
Does anyone have a similar experience- how have their schools behaved?
Thanks so much for any advice/info xxx

MaisyPops no not at all. My post was in response to the post after yours.

No love - your attitude towards women and girls is patronising and offensive. Your assumption that men and boys have control over women and girls is archaic and deeply concerning. I hope your're not in any position where you can indoctrinate others with your sexist beliefs.

No MN smiley accurately conveys my expression upon reading that.

No, there isn't one for 'but I'm just a helpless victim with no control over my own thoughts, beliefs or actions'.

Seriously, nolove, there's no point in rising to it. If someone chooses to believe that the victim of a crime was in any way to blame there's not much you can do. There is a big difference between 'could have taken steps to reduce the risk' and 'to blame' but some people point blank refuse to see the difference.

My DD is 14. Her school keeps on trying to educate the children about sending and sharing pictures. Despite that, there are loads of photo's of both girls and boys being shared around school.

I am not victim blaming, but do feel that there is a lot of hate being put on the boy, saying how it was degrading, disrespectful etc. It takes seconds to send a photo - he may have regretted his decision the second he sent it or he could have been bullied / forced to send it by his 'friends' or he could be a complete and utter bastard. We don't know.

Likewise we don't know the situation that that made the girl send the photo in the first place, he could have been blackmailing her or she may have sent it freely. She not likely to turn round and admit that to her mum is she. I really don't like the automatic assumption that the girl is always the innocent party and the boy is always wrong - although I understand that the fact he is older may have a bearing on hat.
I have a teenage dd and ds. I would be horrified and very angry if my ds asked a girl to send him a naked picture. I would feel the same if my dd sent a naked picture to anyone. Although I would be very supportive if she was going through what the op's dd is going through, I would be very disappointed that she had not come to talk to me.

Very much so Emily. I'm reassured people like yourself are doing a great deal to raise awareness of these issues as teachers!

I think what Pirate is trying to say (badly) is that we should empower the girls - give them the right responses, to any situation. Either online or in relationships. Give them the information so they can make the right choices.

There are apps now that give you a stock response to harassment, much easier than trying to convey a message in words

I also have teen boys and girls and they get the same message - you don't sent pics and you don't ask for them and you don't share

There is an awful lot of naivety on this thread.
Locally I'm aware of several cases of younger teenagers (often but not always girls) being threatened with assault and/or with lies that will be spread about them by an older teenager unless they send an explicit picture. They are not equally responsible along with the person who threatened or manipulated them. Not legally or morally, though sadly it seems like they will be judged as such by part of our society. That may very well be what has happened in this case.

Even when someone shares an explicit photo with someone they trust without having been manipulated into it, they are the victim if the recipient goes on to share it with others. This happened to someone close to me (an adult) and really devestated her. She was never held culpable in any way by our justice system - she was the victim. So I don't know why a 13 year old wouldn't be solely a victim in this situation.

I'm in a relationship. I may choose to share an intimate picture. This is totally fine. If my partners chose to share that with others it would not be fine. I would have done nothing morally wrong and he would have. The same applies to teenagers.

We don't want teenagers sharing naked images because (as well as being technically illegal) they are far less likely to have good judgement of who to trust. But we shouldn't be blaming people who trust others. We should be blaming those who abuse the trust placed in them.

Green - exactly.

I think what Pirate is trying to say (badly) is that we should empower the girls

Very badly if they read all the posts on this thread and decided mine were "offensive", "deeply concerning" and I have "sexist beliefs" about women and girls.

Excellently put Emily.

green, I think I understand what you are saying. Prior to any incident we should ensure that young people have the ability to say no. But in this incidence we aren't talking about prior. We are after the fact discussing whether the girl is to blame. The girl who is the victim of crime. If that isn't the very definition of victim blaming I don't know what is.

I would advice my nieces to never walk home alone at night. But if my niece was attacked walking home alone at night I wouldn't say 'but you are also responsible because you could have avoided walking home'. Because that would make me a victim blaming dickhead.

I would advice my nieces to never walk home alone at night.

This isn't really feasible. How can anyone never walk home alone at night? Ever? Why should women's lives be inhibited by threat of male violence? There have been numerous cases of women and girls being assaulted and worse in broad daylight. Should women never walk anywhere alone?

Well that's a different topic but frustrates me.

OP do you have a support contact at the police station if this is being investigated by the police? Is there any chance you could talk to them and see if there is anything you could do to increase the likelihood of the boy being excluded or having to go to another school - for example, is there an exclusion order (sorry, don't know the proper name) so that the perpetrator can't come within eg 100m of the victim or contact them electronically... If you could get something like that then it would be very difficult for the boy to stay in school and stay within the limits of the order; so although the school wouldn't exclude them per se, the boy wouldn't be able to go to the school as they would have to avoid it to avoid your dd...

Like I said, I don't know the details of these kinds of thing - but hopefully there will be somebody at the police station supporting you who might have some ideas on measures you could take to effectively get the boy removed from the school - which I am assuming is your ultimate goal, rather than wanting him removed by permanent exclusion.

It is a different topic and I'm happy to discuss via PM or a different thread.

Emily - you have shown to be on the case at your school and also acknowledge that not all teachers see the point in delivering the same message.

As a parent I very much tell my children the dangers etc - but that is still with crossed fingers that they don't ever find themselves in either position.

I don't think we have enough information to fully understand where and how the internet social media is taking our children - it is very much a minefiled of conflicting values (So openly share so it must be OK or 'normal' and to be 'normal' I should share too)

Kids just are emotionally mature enough to see the bigger picture

We need more protection for them - but first we need a way of prevention o

Please do PM me on the topic.

Yes, green, which is why my teaching always includes how to reduce the risk of being a victim of crime. (I don't agree with prevention - you can't stop it, you can only make it less likely). But after the fact it really isn't okay to tell someone what they should have done to prevent it. That is dickish when talking about an adult. About a child it is reprehensible.

Thank god the law is more enlightened than many of the posters on this thread. Although it makes me shudder to think that so many mothers think like this, as this is the message that will be passed down to children.

It scares me the amount of primary aged children using snapchat and Instagram. These accounts are rarely private and some of the photos are inappropriate.

I think some of you need to get your head out of the clouds. This situation is happening daily all round round England.

Contrary to what some of you want to believe in the case outlined in the OP there will be at least 2 crimes submitted. The first will for making an indecent image of a child with the OP's daughter shown as the offender because whatever some of you want to believe she did commit a criminal offence. It will be marked as 'not in the public interest to prosecute' but it will be there all the same. This is because every Force is bound by the rules of NCRS compliance where they have to record a crime when one has occurred which in this case it has. The Police are also under no obligation to tell you this but they do usually.

There would also be a crime for the boy for distributing an indecent image of a child with the boy shown as the offender. Depending on the circumstances there are a number of options open for disposal anything from RJ to court.

The vast majority of parents I deal with, generally the parents of the girl, will insist that their daughter was 'pressured or coerced' into making/sending indecent photographs of themselves. It is rarely the case. It usually entirely consensual or even being the girls being the instigators in a misguided attempt to get attention from boys. The Police usually get involved when it becomes apparent that the photos have benn distributed round the school and the bullying has started.

There are so many resources and inputs schools put into the dangers of sexting but as I've said it is a daily occurrance and the age of the children doing this is getting younger and younger. 3 years ago it was 14/15 year olds. Now it's 12/13 year olds with a fair sprinkling of 11year olds.

In my locality an Instagram sites were set up encouraging local kids to post indecent photographs of their school friends and associates and as fast as they were taken down new ones were set up.

The bottom line is children should not be taking indecent photos of themselves and sending them to third parties and it's a message which can't be repeated enough.