Hello, I was hoping for some advice and thought this would be a good pace to start on the right way about things. I'll try not to make it too long but it's quite serious.
My wife and I live in a lovely, small village and have two daughters aged 15 and 11. My 15 year old was looking for weekend work which I encouraged as I had done at her age to gain some independence and earn my own money. She was offered a job as a glass collector at our local village pub, this is when she was 14 and we met all the staff and they were all really nice. So my daughter starter working Friday or/and Saturday evenings and absolutely loved it, she also loved the fact she had her own money and was able to do all the nice things with her friends due to this.
Her manager was a male aged around 35, he was very nice to her and us and he seemed like he really looked after his staff and their well-being, making sure she was happy and enjoying work etc. As the months went by and without our knowledge he was messaging my daughter a lot, mainly friendly messages, taking interest in her life and school work, again we as parents were not aware of this and found out later that she did not tell us as felt we would stop her working there or say something which would cause her problems at work. She would reply back to the messages being polite, it was after all her manager.
Another girl who worked there, similarly aged noticed there was something not quite right and this was because she had been through the same thing as our daughter! They opened up to each other and that is when my daughter knew for definite it was not right so told another member of staff. This member of staff altered the owner immediately and he came round to see us to discuss.
In the last week or so our daughter has told us everything that happened, things she did not say at the time due to being scared of losing her job, not being believed, ruining this persons life and so on. While she was 14 he told her he was "falling for her" in which she replied with "I want to go home", instead of telling us or anymore which I was really annoyed about, she made sure she didn't work a shift with him alone. During all this time he also made friends with me and my wife, but after a couple of months I had to break away from him as he was coming up every night, messaging every day and constantly wanting to come up. He would also ask my daughter to call in and see him in the pub when she wasn't working because he was bored, he started asking her to babysit his daughter on occasions. Luckily she has kept most of the messages and back February I counted 186 messages over a couple of weeks from him, a message in which he referred to her as "gorgeous" and on one occasion told her he would teach her how to get her mum and dad to say yes to anything.
When the owner came round to talk to my daughter, my wife and I he seemed a bit protective over the manager, he had moved him to another pub he manages for the time being but seemed to suggest it could look like a girl trying to get an older man in trouble and if this other girl came forward, 2 girls trying to get an older man in trouble. When I mentioned some of the stuff I'd read he did not discuss it but seemed more bothered with saying but she replied to him didn't she? Well yes she did as he's her boss! He also kept asking why she did not come forward earlier? why did she let it carry on? Erm...maybe because she didn't think anyone would believe her, she was only 14, she didn't expect to be n that position.
The owner is coming round to see us tonight and as of yesterday did not think the other girl would come forward meaning it would just be my daughter with not a lot of evidence, I would have thought the owner would be more concerned with how his older member of staff has acted around younger girls and not make out he's innocent and been ganged up on!
He also told me that he is carrying out and internal investigation where the outcome is final and the other option was to go to the police but it had to be one or the other? Really? So if I'm not happy with the outcome of his internal investigation which he has said he makes the decision and we might not be happy with what he decides then I cannot inform the Police?
My obvious initial feeling was to go see this guy and probably end up getting arrested myself but I know I need to do this properly for my daughters sake and that of any other girls that come to be in this position in the future.
Any help or others views on this would be really helpful or if I haven't mentioned something you believe would help.
Thank you all :-)