Teen accused of being a paedophile advice needed!

[Stuckinarut23]

I've been sent messages from his ex gf of screen shots of my son messaging a 14/15 year old girl, apparently they were messaging on snap chat he wrote some sexual stuff and chatting her up
He said he didn't know she was 15 at first
They haven't met or had sex. I am devastated. I dorn think he realises the consequences of hia actions, screen shots have been posted on FB on groups and what do I do?

I’d put money on this being what has gone on.

I'd put money on the ex being the '15 year old 'tbh

Then she has caught him acting suss, like the paedo catchers do. I wonder how she knew he would be prone to act that way towards a child.

I might be completely wrong, but these are the passages that made me think it might be the case:

"He has just turned 19 apparently she is 15. He said he didn't know at first. I really don't know
His ex seems to posting it."

"He said she said she was 17. Trying to establish if he stopped contact with her."

If OP's son's ex posted screenshots to expose him, I'm also inclined to think the screenshots would have included the girl's age.
Unless it was mentioned and OP's son stopped messaging straight away. In which case, OP's son has nothing to worry about

I would be unhappy if he continued to text in full knowledge of her real age. That would be disturbing.

Context is all important here, did OPs son continue messaging after he knew her true age - if he withdrew from the conversation once this was revealed then he was set up or mislead - if he carried on after knowing, he is very foolish indeed.

Secondly is the girl real or indeed a put up job by the ex girlfriend.

As I see it there are two ways to go -

1/. he goes to the police, explains the situation, explains he thinks he's been set up and is now being harassed on social media - this would be the honourable thing to do, but risks him getting his wrist slapped and a very unfavourable record. If he was to consider this it would be as well to take the advice of a criminal law solicitor first.

2/. withdraw from social media and affected social circles, keep his head down, hope it blows over, which it probably will.

Either way he needs to learn the lesson that now he is an adult he needs to be very careful of his interactions with minors, who are only a few years younger, but minors none the less and focus on adult friends instead - and interactions in real life, not with people you don't know on the web.

No one twisted what you said though. You said, ‘He isn’t a pedophile because he hasn’t slept with her.’ So by that logic, you’re only a paedophile IF you sleep with someone underage? All the people that watch child sexual abuse material on the internet aren’t paedophile’s then?

It’s not about playing a game. It’s about clarifying what you’ve said

The more important issue here is that he continued to sext a girl who he discovered was 15.

he could be a second year at university and she’s a school child. Please discuss with him why this is a problem and is illegal.

@Ramalangadingdong peadophiles don't 'sleep with an underage'. That's called rape.

They are both babies

It’s not at all clear from the OP’s posts whether he carried on messaging once he found out she was 15. The last the OP posted on it was that she was still trying to establish this.

I have been asked to clarify: all I can say is that I may have worded my post quite badly in a quick post.

I am myself a survivor of csa. I was 7 years old. He was young too - just 18. That is a very clear case of paedophilia.

Did you miss the part where the OP said the girl told him she was 17 ?

@Rosscameasdoody Yes- 'at first.'

Report to Facebook and I'd report to police as well. I'd also speak to a solicitor about the misinformation the ex is publicly sharing online. Son needs to not engage with it and take himself off social media. And you need to get more details on what exactly happened and in what order. The more honest he is here the better.

After my own experience on this thread I would say that we should wait until the op clarifies this as language on social media (posts sometimes written in haste) can
be misconstrued.

Did he ask for pics? I'd sit him down and get him to explain EVERYTHING. He is an adult legally here. You could contact the administrators of the paedo website and explain that the girl said she was older-if that is the case - often that will be enough to get them to take stuff down.

@yellowbears "a psychiatric disorder in which an adult has sexual fantasies about or engages in sexual acts with a prepubescent child"
A 15-year-old is not a prepubescent child, therefore OP's son is not a pedophile. simple as that.

We have established that the son is not a paedophile.

@Electro79 I suspect that you haven't been around many police officers, from those that I know, trying to explain the situation will not bring the relief that you expect.

Objectively: He spoke to someone that he thought was 17, who he then learned was 15. If his initial conversations were with a view to dating/clubbing etc and switched to I'm looking forward to the album coming out/tour tickets being available, that is very different to the conversations happening the other way around.

At present, the balance of views appears to be that he is more likely sinned against than sinning. If the ex has set him up, then she would need to be caught out - if her objective was only to post details on the facebook page, then she may have already moved on to a new victim and no evidence will be forthcoming.

If he has been knowingly pursuing a much younger girl, then, I suspect that we all have little sympathy. However, while rare, false allegations are made (https://www.cps.gov.uk/north-west/news/barrow-woman-convicted-making-false-rape-allegations) Eleanor Williams was sentenced to 8.5 years - Snapchat was her tool of choice. Three men accused attempted to take their own lives. Though a very emotive subject, precision in the use of language is important and even where police are keen to make a thorough investigation, resource constraints mean that miscarriages of justice like the quickly forgotten Andrew Malkinson - owed a million pounds by the Ministry of Justice is skint, living in a tent (https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/andrew-malkinson-living-in-tent-wrongful-conviction-homeless-benefits/) happen.

You have serious problems. Your 19 year old should not be targetting stupid, vulberable, naive 14/15 year olds, who may well be from troubled backgrounds.
He may be an adult, but if he's mixing with children, you need to step in and find out who these children are. Why is your 19 year old NOT meeting up with people his own age? I suspect because he can't easily have sex or mix with them. If he does not see anything wrong with his actions. If he does not see an abuse of power that he is using. He's a piece of crap as a human being. And either find a therapist - or if I found out who he was, I would contact the police, who will come into your home and confiscate all your computer equipment. Been there. Done it. With a piece of crap 19 year old targetting a 13 year old.

Personally I would convince him to go to the police . His ex seems to be harassing him and putting his details on a page hoping he will get hurt . That’s shocking

He is not a paedophile. The term is often misused. It refers to people who are sexually attracted to children aged under 13.

If he reasonably believed that the girl he was messaging was 16 or over, he has not committed any offence. If he continued sending sexual messages to her after he became aware of her age, that is an offence but it is unlikely he would be prosecuted. Even if he was, it is a relatively minor offence and a prison sentence is unlikely.

He (or you on his behalf) needs to contact FB and any other social media sites hosting these screenshots and get them taken down.

His ex cannot report to the police, as she is not the "victim" so to speak. It would have to be the 15 year old who reported anything to the police, and she'd need pretty concrete evidence of anything that crossed the boundary of a sexual offence, and could possibly get herself in trouble too. If he has received any sexual images of her, then he's technically in possession of child pornography, and i really hope he hasn't shared them if he did receive any, as then he'd be a dsitributor of child pornography, which would stand even if she was the 17 year old he thougt she was, it's illegal and classed child pornography if they are under 18. The 15 year old could get in trouble for creating and distributing child pornography too if she has taken or sent any nudes of herself to your son.
If he has sent any photos of his genitals to her, he may have comitted an offence, espeically if he knew by then she was 15. General sex chat, once established she was under 16, is also probably some kind of sex offence, but the likelihood of getting a prosecution would probably be pretty slim, he'd more likely get a caution of some sort if it did get that far.

The bigger issue is the posting of all of this online. His ex is most definitely breaking the law with regards to harrassment, threats, and potentially more by posting his information and these claims online, even if she does have proof, vigilantism isn't legal. Your son should seriously consider talking to the police himself, and see if they can at least have a word with her to get her to take down her posts, although at this point, it's out there, you don't know who has shared what where.

No sympathy for your son, as soon as he knew she was 15 he should have deleted and blocked her, not continued! (sounds from your posts he didn't know "at first" but then did and carried on, apologise if he did cut all contact upon learning she was under 16, if it is indeed true she initially told him she was over 16)

Stop with the misogyny and victim blaming bullshit.

A 19 year old is a adult. A 15 year old is a child.

@Ramalangadingdong I'm sorry that happened to you! A 7 year old is innocent.

Bloody hell, what a lot of nonsense on here.

Firstly, he is not a paedophile. This is not, as suggested earlier, because he didn’t have sex with her. This is because paedophiles have a sexual attraction to children-physical children ie prepubescent. At 15, she is not physically a child even though she, is of course, legally one. If a crime was committed then yes, the young man would be added to the sex offenders register. That would still not make him a paedophile.

Secondly, from a moral POV, a lot will depend on whether he backed off from sex talk once he knew she was underage. It would be unusual for a 15yr old to say she’s 17, engage in sexting then be all, ‘surprise, I’m actually 15’. That sounds more like catfishing to me.

Legally, unless he saved any explicit pictures or sent any messages that obviously smack of grooming or sent anything suggesting sex after she admitted she was 15, then the police will not be interested. They may have a word about ensuring he’s sure about who he’s talking to but as there was no physical contact then as long as no saved explicit images or suggestion of grooming then he doesn’t need to worry about being prosecuted. In fact, they may be able to give some sound advice re the other FB pages. I believe there is a way to retrieve your own expired Snapchat messages within a certain time. Hopefully one message will show a backing off once he knows she’s 15.

To the poster earlier talking about hunting him down as you’ve done before-get a grip! This is not a vigilante state. This is an 18yr old (at the time) talking to a 15yr old whom he thought was a 17yr old. Not a man grooming a 13yr old as in the scenario you describe. 🙄

I’m a secondary school teacher and I will say that whilst I fully believe in the importance of the age of consent, in the minds of teenagers, it’s a very remote, arbitrary, unfathomable line that adults have drawn in the sand. There is often very little physical, emotional or psychological difference between 15-17 (in their eyes) (I know op’s son was 18) so they don’t ‘see’ it or heed it anywhere near as often as they should. I’m not condoning that but they just don’t understand or consider there to be any difference. 😬

My advice is to speak to the police and speak to a lawyer. Good luck. Hopefully, lesson learned.

This is not paedophilia it's two teenagers behaving very irresponsibly. Tell your DS to stop mixing with silly manipulative underage girls with no brain cells and to start finding women his own age . He deserves everything he gets quite frankly