sending of explicit pictures to a minor - now renewed contact

[worried-dad]

Honestly don't know where to go for advice here, so apologies if this is an inappropriate forum, but any advice would be greatly appreciated. The situation described occurred in England.

My daughter (13 at the time, 14 now) alleges an incident of violent sexual assault - this happened towards the end of 2020. The suspect was 16 at the time, and was previously unknown to my daughter until a single chance meeting in public, whereupon they exchanged snapchat details, and my daughter had clearly told him her actual age. The next day, he started sending her pictures of his genitalia, unsolicited. A month or so later, they had another chance meeting at a social event, and my daughter alleges that the suspect violently sexually assaulted her.

As soon as my daughter made my wife and I aware of these events, we then took her to the police where she made a statement. After a protracted couple of months, the police ended up interviewing the suspect and a single witness - the suspect admitted sending explicit pictures, but denied the violent sexual assault. As there was no other evidence other than the witness statement (the witness is a close friend of the suspect), no further action was taken against the suspect concerning the violent sexual assault. It was also determined that it was "not in the public interest" to pursue a charge relating to the indecent pictures.

This all concluded back in March of this year. We felt we had put our then 13 year old daughter through a huge ordeal for no purpose. My wife and I were extremely disappointed about the lack of justice in this case, and felt very let down by the police and legal system - not to mention social services, who decided an appropriate course of action following this assault on my daughter was to launch a family investigation into us...but that's another story.

Fast forward to today - this morning at 3am, my other daughter (15 yrs old) received an unsolicited message through instagram from the suspect saying "why did your sister lie about her age and try make me catch a case" (verbatim).

My 15 year old daughter has never had any contact with the suspect before today (either in person, or through social media) until this message.

My whole family has been very shaken by the renewed contact from the suspect. My daughters are both afraid (the suspect lives relatively close to us). Surely it cannot be acceptable for him to behave in this manner, and I am wonder if any law has been broken by the message detailed above?

I am concerned that the suspect appears to have been festering over this for the best part of a year, and is now making active efforts to contact my children - given the nature of the original allegation, I am very concerned about what his intentions are, and that having previously sent pictures of his genitalia to my younger daughter (followed by the unproven assault), he is now attempting to message my older daughter.

Is there any legal action I can take at all? I have reported this latest message to the police (well, to a police call handler), but given how the original incident was dealt with, I have zero faith they will take any action - and in fact, as a result of me calling the police today to report this, I have been given an "appointment" to speak with the relevant police force on Saturday (4 days from now).

Until the suspect entered our lives, we had never had the misfortune of having to deal with the police, social services and the like. It is driving me insane that this guy is still able to cause trouble for us, as a father who wants to protect his kids.

What can I do? What would you do?

[Suzie, FRG Adviser]

Dear Worried dad

Welcome to the parents’ discussion board and thank you for your post. My name is Suzie and I am Family Rights Group’s online adviser. I am very sorry to hear of the difficulties that you and your family, in particular your teenage daughters, have experienced.

I am also sorry to hear that you found the responses that the statutory services (police and children’s services) offered were inadequate. Our remit is to provide advice to families about children’s services. You refer to children’s services’ investigating your family. If you need advice about the outcome of that or about making a complaint please ask – in the meantime this information about complaints may be helpful.

Your main concern, however, is that your 15 year old daughter was contacted on social media, out of the blue, on the day you posted, by the person who admitted to sending sexually explicit photographs to your 13 year old daughter and who is alleged to have sexually assaulted her. This has understandably caused distress to your daughters and your family.

You have acted appropriately by contacting the police and have an appointment to meet with them. They should advise on whether a crime has been committed and what action they intend to take. You should also let them know that you are worried about any other action the person who contacted your daughter may take and ask their advice on this.

I can understand that you and your family may need additional support and advice about this and the previous incidents. You can contact children’s services directly again in view of your concerns or alternatively you may prefer to speak to the NSPCC (0808 800 5000) who can provide advice to you about your concerns for your daughters, how to keep them safe and what services there are to help them. They can also refer to children’s services or help you to do so, if appropriate. Do the girls already have Childline’s number so that they can speak directly to an adviser if they wish to? The number is 0800 1111. Parents Protect and CEOP are specialist services addressing child sexual abuse and online sexual abuse and may be of interest to you.

It could be possible that the young man you are worried about has also contacted other young people online in the same way. The police or children’s services may know if this is the case. You could check if your local authority has a contextual safeguarding protocol ; this relates to harm posed to a young person outside their home.

You ask about any legal action you can take. The police will lead on any criminal investigation. However, if you are querying whether there is any civil legal action you can take perhaps such as an injunction you would need to discuss with a solicitor; you can find a solicitor via the Law Society website or check if there is a law centre near you via the Law Centre network .

I hope this helps.

If you do need advice about children’s services please do contact us again either via this forum or by calling our freephone advice line helpline, 0808 8010366, Mon to Fri, 9.30 am to 3.00 pm (please note our Christmas/New Year hours – the freephone advice line and digital advice service will close at 3pm on Friday, 23rd December 2022 and will reopen at 9.30am on Tuesday, 3rd January 2023).

Best wishes

Suzie