My beautiful daughter (14) was groomed by a man (18) she met while on holiday with a friend and her family. When checking her phone one day I found the most disturbing pictures and videos of this man wanking, repeated requests for my daughter to send him images, and disgusting suggestions about what he would like to do to her. I messaged him and told him to leave her alone to which he replied that they were friends and I should lighten up. I told him if she received any other messages, I would go to the police, which in the end I did anyway. The police were amazing. They took copies of the images and statements from myself and my daughter (who incidentally felt responsible for getting him into trouble) and he was subsequently charged. In the courtroom, the judge decided not to record a conviction because the defendant wanted to join the army and my daughter had been a “willing participant” in her own underage grooming. To add insult to injury, her own father, when told about the grooming said, “She must have led him on.”
