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?

It's still a crime whether it's a 15 year old or a 5 year old.

No it doesn’t. Bandying the term about when it doesn’t apply diminishes it’s meaning and the severity of what it involves. Both paedophilia and child sex offences are abhorrent, but the term paedophilia is reserved for those offences involving very young children under 13, including babies. Child sex offender is the term used for sexual offences involving minors between the ages of 14 and 16. Paedophilia is clearly not appropriate to what’s being discussed and speculated on here, if in fact, anything illegal has actually taken place, as there is nothing to confirm this.

No-one is disputing that. But do you not think there’s a special place in hell for those who think it’s fine to rape babies, toddlers and young children who don’t even understand what sex is, let alone knowing what consent means ?

Shall we forget about calling people who abuse children 'paedophiles?' Most of them are married men, they don't have an exclusive attraction to children, and they aren't 'lovers (-philes) of children. 'Child Sex Offender' covers all these offenders regardless of the age of the victim. People who abuse older children are still disgusting criminals.

No one is “quibbling” about the issue. I don’t see anyone saying that a 19 y/o and a 15 y/o is ok. However, there is a difference between things that it is important not to blur the lines of.

A 15 year old saying they are 17 and a 19 year old messaging them is very different.

The content of the messages also matters, currently there is far too little information for the number of leaps people are making. If the messages were “flirty” by 1990s standards there is almost nothing to see here, if they are “flirty” by modern standards there are all kinds of things that could be at issue.

The best out come is for the 19 y/o to just cut all contact with the girl as soon as he found out she was not 17, but if he toned it down to non-flirty contact I would still be unimpressed but you are not looking at a crime. If he toned it down and then cut contact that is OK too. He sounds really dumb and (given it seems he was probably cheating on the ex) not a great guy but that is not to be confused with a Saville type.

No one said that.

Paedophile has a definition. Child abuser is wider, but also we don’t have enough here to call the 19 y/o that. A 19 year old who flirts with a 17 year old is not a child abuser from that action. If they are told someone is 17 but they are actually 15 that is not on them, what matters is when they find out.

I don’t think anyone would disagree with that from the point of view of child sex offenders being abhorrent. But it still doesn’t alter the fact that paedophilia is a different definition.

When I was 15 I was sexually abused or something by a 16 year old boy. The age of consent and someone over it doing or saying sexual stuff to someone under it (a child) should be taken seriously and enforced.

The authorities take a more pragmatic view. If the younger person consents to what has happened, the older person will only be prosecuted if the age gap is large. It is not in anyone's interests to criminalise a 16-year-old who has consensual sex with a 15-year-old.

I am not sure we’re helping the op. These debates are all very well but she is dealing with a very real and live issue that I wouldn’t wish on anybody. Of course she doesn’t want to think that her son is a SO of any kind. She is currently trying to establish the facts. I hope she will come back and update when she does. And I am hoping that he stopped texting when he found out she was underage.

It literally is still a crime…

To repeat, if he reasonably believed she was 16 or over, there was no crime.

As others have said, “at first” implies he found out. But regardless I used IF for a reason.

What does that have to do with my comment?

@porridgeisbae stated it’s still a crime whether it’s 15 or 5. @kaka79 stated “no it’s not”.

it literally is.

As the mother of a DS19 I can confirm they can be incredibly stupid at times.
And yes I know the definition of paedophile, I also have a colleague whose son was prosecuted for grooming a 13yr old girl and having sex with her, he was 19/20. It ruined the colleagues whole life because they blamed themselves for their son’s actions. It is a few years ago when SM was still fairly new and they had no idea what he was up to.

Most mothers would blame themselves for their son’s actions. We all like to think we have covered all the scenarios, and drummed into them that no means no, to take responsibility for contraception and most of all not to have sex with anyone under the age of consent.
It can lead to some difficult conversations but you have to do it and keep on reminding them.

Social media is a bloody minefield because most of us didn’t have SM as teenagers. We have no idea about the language or the rules. As a result we can’t imagine how SM is used by teenagers and ultimately how much damage is being done by online bullying.

DS’s ex caused a lot of problems for DS last year. He tried to deal with it but eventually asked if he could save all her messages to my phone. She would take his phone off him at school to see if he was texting other girls months after she had finished with him. The abusive texts were awful, he just wanted her to stop. So after he directed them to my phone he told her immediately what he had done, even then she still sent a number of abusive texts.

Please do show me where it’s agreed that a 15 year can legally give consent in law. Because the statutory age of consent is 16. Anyone below that cannot consent. And there isn’t a “she invited it” clause.

@AnneValentine@kaka79 former lawyer here. The strict definition of whether it would be classed as a crime or not depends on whether the awareness component is included in the mens rea/intention element of the statute (or case law interpretation). If so, it wouldn't be a crime, no. If the lack of awareness element is written as a defense, then it is a crime but with criminal liability not imposed. Either way, in broad layman brush strokes @kaka79 is right

To add to @uckedfaypuay, the law does not say that someone below the age of 16 cannot consent. Any sexual activity with a child under 13 is automatically an offence regardless of the child's consent or the age of the other individual. However, once the child is over 13, the situation is more complex.

• If someone has sex with the child without the child's consent, that is rape
• If someone under 18 has sex with the child and the child consents, no offence has been committed
• If someone aged 18 or over has sex with the child and the child consents, the offence is sexual activity with a child (which is less serious than rape)

This is set out in the Sexual Offences Act 2003.

I’ve just consulted my DS19.
Interestingly teenagers consider an age gap over over 2 yrs as morally dubious ( yes I was a little🙄) but this applies to couples who are 21 and under. 16&18 up to 19&21 acceptable but 16&19 is dodgy.

They would use the term paedophile for anyone over 16 going out with anyone under 16 where the age gap is over one school year. He said that is was slang rather than correct use of the word.
Their dating parameters appear to be very narrow. The age gap also applies both ways although he said girls were unlikely to date boys more than one year younger than them.

But, if the girl lied about her age then he is not at fault. Lying is considered entrapment.
He also said that it sounds like the girlfriend set him up and is not over him.
I asked him if he would be happy to accept a friend request from a girl he didn’t know. He said absolutely not unless she had close friends in common that he could check with before accepting her. His words “ you really have to be careful nowadays” 😂
I then asked what he would do if he found someone had lied about their age, “ instant block”.

Not my specialisation, but I'm fairly certain this isn't quite right - omits the reasonable belief in age requirement which was precisely @kaka79's point

Just to add, if OP's son has committed an offence at all, it would be "sexual communication with a child". The elements required to convict someone of this offence are:

• The alleged offender must be aged 18 or over. No-one under 18 can commit this offence
• The communication must be sexual or intended to encourage the alleged victim to make a sexual communication
• The alleged offender must be communicating for the purpose of obtaining sexual gratification
• The alleged victim must be under 16 and the alleged offender must not reasonably believe that the alleged victim is 16 or over

As I have said a few times on this thread, we don't know enough to say whether an offence has been committed.

Note that this is one of the least serious offences in the Sexual Offences Act. An offender would only face a prison sentence in the most serious of cases.