Anonymous

Someone on a nitrous forum i use posted this, thought it might be useful to any parents on this stie too, i dont know if its true or not, but certainly a stark warning either way:




Those of you who know me will know i'm not a sensationalist. I'm not a writer looking for recognition nor a newspaper selling copies.
I'm not nieve and i know full well what goes on behind the public face of the internet, i'm not talking about "bigjubblies.com" either.

I actually WANT this story to be passed around, linked to, copied and pasted as far as you can make it reach. As such i've changed the details enough to make it untraceable to protect the innocent but the facts remain the truth and will hopefully serve as a warning to all those of you who care about kids and their safety.

"Alice" (name changed) was 12. She was doing really well in school with perfect report cards, A's in every subject, did several after school clubs and went horse riding at the weekends.
Basically a happy, outgoing and popular kid.
Her parents are happily married, have good jobs and nice cars yet still make sure they have a homelife. One of them is always home before "Alice" or picks her up from school.
They're both the product of inner city comprehensive schools and they've worked hard to get where they are.
They've both taught "Alice" to be street smart, she knows how to spot every scam going, if anything she was slightly paranoid.

So how did "Alice" end up being sexually exploited in some pretty horrific ways by a 25 year old stranger for 6 months without anyone knowing ?
"Couldn't happen" you say ? Keep reading..........

"Alice" physically developed quite early, basically when she turned 12 everything appeared overnight but the typical "teenage terrorist" didn't happen until her 13th birthday.
Almost to the day she became the nightmare teenager;
Rude, sullen, argumentative, violent, prone to sudden mood swings, seemingly getting into trouble on purpose, sneaking out of the house in the night, bunking off school, smoking, coming home drunk.
(reminds me of being a teenager in fact)
But no-one expected her to destroy her room, cut up her clothes, smash the computer and tv then finally attempt suicide in the space of an hour.

That's when her dad called me, I'm no computer whiz but I know more about computers than him, I helped him get it up and running when he bought it and I talked to "Alice" fairly regularly on MSN but when i saw the state of it i realised no-one was going to be recovering anything from it. The hard-drive itself had been her target and unless she started talking we'd have no idea what had been going on.
Going through their CDrom's on my PC i found one for a spyware program and it turned out it had been installed and forgotten. The daily reports being sent to a spare e-mail account no-one used.
18 months of e-mails, MSN instant message chatter, bebo page entries and websites visited, all on daily report sheets.

She was usually supervised when she was chatting, she was in a family room with adults usually present and taking an interest, so how could anything have happened ?
Hav u evr tryd reedin txt mssges or IM cht ? iz it eny suprze dat dey cn hav a convo rite in ya fce bt u dnt c enyfin up ?
Ad dat to da fact dey ofen hav convos wiv up2 10 peeps @ a tym, flikin between dem al da tym an itz pretti ezy to hyd summat sus.
itz a way ov bein kl an hidin wht u say azwel.
Now tell me you read that in the time it would have taken your son or daughter to write it, especially since you would have seen it in word blocks of 10 at the most while she changed pages and held 10 different conversations simultaneously.
Be realistic, you couldn't could you ?

Basically this 25 year old man had been a friend of a friend of the family.
He knew enough about her and her friends to get her trust and she accepted him as a harmless contact
(They ALWAYS accept contacts, THEN ask who they are)
Nothing in his display name, his picture or profile gave away his age but "Alice" knew his age within the first week.
(An adult who's "cool" and takes the time to chat with a kid, it's flattering)
He shared a lot of her interests but not all, they argued over football teams.
(They had a lot in common, lots of things to chat about and something to argue over when it got boring.)
He missed talking to her if she hadn't been on-line for a day or so.
(made her feel valued as a person, special to someone who wasn't family)
When she was down, so was he. When she was up, so was he.
(empathised with her, showed that someone knew how she felt)
When she felt self conscious he complimented her on everything.
(Gave her that boost you need when you feel ugly or just want to hear that you're pretty)
He offered to pick her up and take her out in his car.
(Never made it feel like she should hide him, left her guilt to do that)
He often missed her, could he have a harmless webcam picture of her?
(What could be the harm in that ?)

Very slowly the conversations and pictures became more sexual, never in big leaps but gradually. Whenever he felt he'd pushed too far he'd suddenly disappear leaving her with a sense of guilt. The feeling that somehow she'd let him down, not done what any friend would do.
As the relationship became heavier they became "boyfriend and girlfriend" and even his display name changed to reflect it.
They'd begun a "serious" relationship that in her eyes was in full view of the world, what girl of 13 could resist ?

This is the point that she essentially became a sexual slave and suffered abuse you can't imagine being able to pay a prostitute enough to endure.
Mentally she was in love with this man and would do anything to protect him or please him including suffering degrading abuse.

When she was told of his arrest she broke down in tears and became unconsolable, she'd betrayed her lover, ruined his life, her friends would hate her for it.
Not one of her tears was for herself.

If you're not already in shock then you will be.
"Alice" was just one of a group of 14 girls that were his "girlfriends". They chatted about what they'd done with him but mainly about how he'd made them feel special, it caused rivalries within the group as they fought over who would be "this weeks" special girl.
He spent a whole year "grooming" "Alice" before they so much as met in person.
They often wait until the kid turns 13 due to a law change at that point.
He was found with the detailed profiles of over 40 girls.
He lived with his parents.
He had a respectable job dealing with the public.
He'd never even had a speeding ticket.
The police refer to "Alice" as "lucky" she is after all still alive.

Am I some smartass preaching about bad parenting ?
No, i'm not. I very much doubt i'd have seen it coming either.
But I am a sane and rational person who can relay the story without sensationalising it, I can tell it how it was and how it got there.

How you keep them safe is upto you, but you can;
Tell them you want to see their profiles tomorrow. It gives them chance to delete the stuff they shouldn't have on there and will help them realise what should and shouldn't have been on there.
Check their homepages and profiles for personal details. (school, DOB, etc)
Where possible make sure it's hidden from public view (it's often an option)
Check their photo galleries for "suggestive" pictures.
Check their contact lists occasionally.
Take the time to get to grips with their lives and the technology they use to live it.
Install spyware, one that catches BOTH sides of instant message chat and either hide its use completely or be open about it.
Learn txt tlk !
But don't ban computers or go ape at some of the things you'll see, kids say things on-line and by txt message they would never say in real life. Banning them or taking it literally simply drives them underground.
I'm in my thirties, if my parents had any idea what i'd got upto i'd probably still be grounded, times have changed and to them on-line isn't real.

Please cut and paste this anywhere you go, it's the first warning i've read that i'd have paid attention to.
This predator was real, not a newspaper sensation and he's destroyed 14 lives before they really got started.
"Alice" will haunt me forever, don't let her haunt you.