Man posed as teen lesbian to snare girl's nude photos

This wouldn't seem particularly bad

I mean hey, we all fantasized about the cute girl in class when we were teenagers, right?

Some people clearly just have trouble shutting off every memory of that when they turn 16/18/21/whatever the law requires. When I'm 52 I sure as hell won't have forgotten my 15 year old girlfriend (from back when I too was 15). I wonder if my memories of those hot, sweaty nights are legal or not. A photo certainly wouldn't be, even if I'd been the one who'd taken it of her back then with her consent. What I guess I'm saying is that he's probably just stuck in the schoolgirls-are-hot phase of development and so probably isn't an evil guy like that nursery nurse woman from a few weeks ago that everyone's probably forgotten about.

And pretending to be someone they're not? Everyone does that online. From the teenager clicking the "yes, I'm totally over 18" button on a porn site to modifying your facebook profile pic to get rid of that irritating spot. The whole lot's just a web of lies an deceit...

But then there's the pre-pubescent stuff. And that's just wrong (assuming it's not a cartoon- remember that those funny simpsons pics you got emailed last week are soon to be kiddie porn). Saying that it quite possibly stems from the schoolgirl thing, so could probably be psychiatrist-ed out of him. Or at least pared down to a slightly more socially acceptable ephebophilia.

And the icon choice is because- by the sounds of it- he should be walking over a psychiatrist's welcome mat rather than that of a high security prison for a 20 year term of having the crap beaten out of him.

Or should I just say he's a sick freak that should be shot? Probably a more popular answer...

Think of the children

Hmmmm your post is more like "think of the paedos"

Your argument seem to be

1. She was too young to be using this technology - her parents should have been monitoring her all the time

2. Flabby middle aged men can't find satisfaction in any other way.

3. This is all "pathetic" rather than a criminal exploitation by a predator.

From the story, it sounds like he conducted a very sneaky campaign to get the pictures, followed by blackmail. To me this isn't a "world gone mad, prudish, disproportionate sentence" story...

paedos easy political target

Yes they are scum. Yes they deserve long jail sentences. Still they make for big headlines and have little political power generally so they are low hanging fruit for those in the legal system looking to climb the ladder and get theirs. A better question is why are the feds not going after all the far worse scum that run the too big to fail Wall St. institutions that are truly destroying our society and our future economic security? It couldn't be because they decide who gets elected and are the true kingmakers. The corruption in western society is almost as bad as Zimbabwe, it is just hidden better, and the sheeple go along better so the house of cards lasts longer.

@Pierre

Couldn't say it better - when my children grow up, until they're 18 they won't have free access to a PC nor a webcam... Very stupid parents!

Blame the parents

@Pierre

It's never the parents fault, you should know that by now, kids are badly behaved in schools because of the schools, never the parents at home.

Blame does depend on the class of parents too. If you're a working class family and you leave your 3 kids in a hotel room while you and some mates go to a tapas bar to get drunk and say one of them gets kidnapped, then the other 2 get taken off you and you go to jail. If you're middle class you get to tour the world crying about how bad it is while people send you money.

Go figure

I email these stories to my young daughters......

just to show that everything on the internet isn't what it says it is.

And in reply to a previous poster. You cannot/should not supervise all children's use of the internet. You need to educate youngsters as to the sort of assholes which hang around chatrooms 'getting down with the kids'

And before everybody starts calling me a bad parent and we deserve everything we get. It is estimated 50 Million people are driving PC's full of scam ware/phishing ware. Should we supervise all their web access no. They need to be educated to know what is right and what is wrong.

Maybe a set of Darwin'esk awards for people that do dumb things on the internet and email them around the young/naïve/stoopid.

Forewarned is forearmed. Lesson over

Pierre...

Did your attention drift before the end of the article, when the ten videos of prepubescent girls were mentioned? That isn't ephebophilia, that's straight-out paedophilia - and whilst I concur that the parents should not be permitting unfettered internet access, to conclude that the fact they did somehow excuses the middle-ages scumbags in question is... bizarre.

Anyway, kids aren't expected to display the same judgement as adults. This is why they can't drink, vote, drive, marry, or - crucially in this case - GIVE CONSENT.

Return to your list of 'fings wot pierre finks is paffetic', and kindly add yourself.

What he said

You tell them Pierre.

I only want to add: why is this newsworthy? It might give dirty old men ideas. The media in general have a "gentleman's agreement" with the police not to over-publicise suicide cases as it can give people ideas. Why not the same on this sort of thing?

@Srlsly. In what world are we living?

And what all the commentators and reporters ignore is the research that shows that 25% of those abused sexually are abused by women.

Also what about the latest nursery school case.

I love you Pierre

will you cam for me? xx

On what part of the world are we focussed ?

Perhaps we are losing our way by paying greater and greater attention to the internet / mass-media and the manner in which they reflect our lives. Too much of our lives, and worryingly, our childrens lives, is being played out via this conduit. It is a mirror of human activity, however distorted that might be in some ways. It highlights extremes above the norm and maybe we fail to take account of this.

Are we dragged into the net-view of the world / ourselves with far more ease than stepping back and taking a rational view of the way our lives are being driven by it. A minority of perverts and loonies enjoy the annonimity afforded by this medium. They will drift towards any means that puts a potential victim or mark in a position of weakness and the way in which we use, rely on, the internet for communication allows for that. There is a lot of sound advice out there for parents to make use of in making the internet experience safer for their children.

Education has to help, perhaps mandatory Net-Saftey classes in our schools and colleges would work? Most kids love the medium for the instant access to mates and on-line gaming etc. And most kids are brought up to be aware of potential dangers in the 'real' world. But, sadly, the world has always had nasties in it and they show no signs of going away any time soon. Our channels of communication are evolving faster than we can adapt to them and ensure a safer virtual world.

Participating in any on-line activity is not unlike having a loud conversation on a very crowded station platform, there are peeps busy doing different stuff in all directions at once, but also moments when your interaction with one or two people is shared by the many around you. I don't think there is a single answer for the potential problems we can all be exposed to over the internet and I'm not sure I have any answers at all. But if you can educate your kids about drug abuse you can educate them about taking care whilst on-line.

Maybe the fact that this medium can seperate our traditional family and friendship structures, whereby individuals can choose to co-exist in both 'real' and 'virtual' worlds, almost simultaneously, and the virtual world allows you to lock-out your parents (groan) or any other individual you choose to prevent accessing your own 'world' for a moment. How much communication is done these days twixt parents and kids using mobile phones, I mean they're great devices for checking on lunch money status or sports kit preparation, but this is no replacement for all siting down together for an evening meal and chatting in the 'real' world about the 'real' world, and any 'virtual' worlds that may be contained therein.

We need eachother even more in these times of technological advancement, but the same technology can pull us further apart!

(sorry for going on and on a bit there)

@ ElReg!comments!Pierre

Amen to that!

i've always been

The following may require seasoning.... (thats a pinch of salt for you less subtle types.)

[quote]WTF can lead 40-yo men to such behavior? I mean they clearly weren't pathological "paedos", one even wen.......[/quote]

Maybe it's an age thing. Maybe we all get horny for sub teens* once we get to that kind of age, maybe its due to some chemical change in our brains when we reach that age.

but probably the real explanation is that this guy has always been a kiddie fiddler, just one perhaps without the confidence to actually carry out his devious acts..... but then along comes Kev from PissyWerld and sells him a laptop and WOOHOO internet anonymity FTW! apart from the feds watching his every move XD

*(makes me think of a subway..... with cooked human instead of chicken. mmmmm tasty. of course, wanting to eat a teenager cooked and sliced on a sub roll is so much better morally than wanting to screw one. probably less of a jail sentance too.)

woops wrong title

The following may require seasoning.... (thats a pinch of salt for you less subtle types.)

[quote]WTF can lead 40-yo men to such behavior? I mean they clearly weren't pathological "paedos", one even wen.......[/quote]

Maybe it's an age thing. Maybe we all get horny for sub teens* once we get to that kind of age, maybe its due to some chemical change in our brains when we reach that age.

but probably the real explanation is that this guy has always been a kiddie fiddler, just one perhaps without the confidence to actually carry out his devious acts..... but then along comes Kev from PissyWerld and sells him a laptop and WOOHOO internet anonymity FTW! apart from the feds watching his every move XD

*(makes me think of a subway..... with cooked human instead of chicken. mmmmm tasty. of course, wanting to eat a teenager cooked and sliced on a sub roll is so much better morally than wanting to screw one. probably less of a jail sentance too.)

sweet jesus

Where were all these dumb ass chicks when I was 15?

@ElReg!comments!Pierre

On the whole, I have to agree with you. If a 15-year-old girl willingly gives up "noodz" to a stranger over the Internet, then she's at least partly to blame. Fifteen is not too young to know better.

Hot or not?

- Not.

Much preferred: a woman of 25+, with a mind of her own and a sense of the stuff of life -- someone to listen to and argue with. A good figure is fine, but I'd rather it had a brain attached to it.

I suspect the scope of conversation and mutual understanding with a 15 year old schoolgirl may be somewhat restricted, much like the mental age of the middle-aged men who persue them.

Dont you

Just love the internet

Where men are men

and the women are men

and the children are FBI agents

@serviceWithASmile

"but then along comes Kev from PissyWerld and sells him a laptop"

I'd just like to point out that I no longer work for PissyWerld.

Thank you.

Protect the children - Bubblewrap for kids

To all the parents standing over their children using the internet

I am setting up a new company called 'Bubblewrap for kids'

For £5million I will post you a roll of bubblewrap for you to wrap your children in until they are 18. Then you can send them into the world unblemished and naive.

I just hope they can figure out how to cross the road on their own.

My view is moderation. Allow them freedom to explore on the internet but be nearby to guide and educate if required and let them find out about all the freaks on the internet and teach them how to spot the perv's. People over 18 get caught by this all the time is it any less worse for them. I would say not because they are supposed to know better and lets face it everybody knows some girl that has had her pictures posted without her consent. (and has laughed at their naivety)

forewarned is forarmed

helicopters because that's what I call controlling parents

Think of the porn stars..

Now, I'll admit I've not read *all* the comments, but one thing that continually springs to mind in all these cases is the assignment of an arbitrary age of legal and moral acceptability. Not so long ago (in terms of 'modern' developed human society) it was quite acceptable for 13 year old girls to be married off to bare children. There is even an argument that this was necessary in terms of human reproduction as people lived shorter lives and hence needed to reporduce as early as possible in order to guarantee viable offspring. It is only the subsequent readjustment of the socially accepted age of defining an 'adult' that makes a similar sexual encounter today illegal and protested by most to be immoral.

And for those that comment on the abhorrence of pre-pubescent shenanigans, please explain the perfectly morally acceptable fact that so many men spout an open and lustful preference for a shaven pubic area. The primary visual difference between a sexually mature (adult=legal) and sexually immature (minor=illegal) female. The issue, as with life in general, is never clear-cut.

I have 3 kids. Love them all and openely educate them on all matters to help them ENJOY being children.Children learn through question and experimentation and are best guided by clearly defined (and enforced) boundaries that allow freedom to question and experiment. Despite the fact that my kids are young enough to still beleive I have eyes in the back of my head, you CAN NOT monitor them all-the-time and everywhere. And SHOULD NOT. Educate them well (not scare) and support them when things go wrong.

And if you think that the neighbour's 15 year old daughter really is quite stunningly gorgeous, with fine breasts of the sort that your loving wife lost years ago, please be assured you are quite normal.

Fule

Could have saved himself a raft load of trouble if he had just become a movie director and removed to France first.

@ElReg!comments!Pierre

Major Kudos for this post. Yes it has stirred a hornets nest. Yes it expresses an opinion that not all will agree with but he has the guts to speak what he believes and not hide behind the AC moniker.

These things were written down for our instruction

Don't send nude pics of yourself to anyone!

Don't even take the photographs!

No, it won't ruin your life if you "accidentally" did and you're 12 years old unless your family is into honour killing.

Just to make it clear for the thickos

First, thanks to the many people who got my point and restored my faith in the human race (well, kinda, for now).

For the ones who didn't get my point: I don't approve of what the offender did. It is quite gruesome, especially the blackmail part. I am not a (closet or otherwise) kiddie fiddler, I have plenty of fun with women my age, thank you very much (mostly women 5-10 years older than I am even. I expect that to change in a couple years when I pass the 40 milestone, but that's an other matter entirely).

I am just tired of the overly hypocritical situation unraveled by this kind of stories. "I can't control my kids' access to the Internet because they have cameraphones with unlimited dataplans, and laptops"? Really? I'm sure you guys can make sure that your 14-yo kids don't take your car for a ride every single night, right? How is it any different? Who bought the smartphone, who bought the laptop, who's paying for the unlimited dataplan, who got -and controls- the internet connection?

To go on with the car metaphor, I was "lucky" enough to be raised in the countryside, and I can remember driving all sort of vehicles (cars, trucks, tractors, you name it) as soon as I was old enough to reach the pedals. I do also distinctly remember my father and/or mother being never far away, especially the first times. There was no need for spying, or even for close supervision (appart for the very first times). They were around, and it was enough. It does work the same way for internet browsing. Think about it.

Another comparison, just to nail it down: I'm sure every single kid knows better than to follow the strange guy with the dirty trenchcoat to his unmarked white van (although child abuse is most of the time the doing of close relatives -again, an other problem entirely). Then how come that the same kids will happily send titty pics to whomever asks for them on the intarwubs? Isn't there an education problem here?

I guess the misunderstanding is partly my fault, though. I know what confused the simplest minds: I probably shouldn't have mixed this point with the discrepancy between how our society considers fraudsters (they did it for the money, so even if they ruined a few thousand families' lives -or even the whole nation, come to think of it-, it's OK. Let's wait a couple years and give them a government job) and anything remotely related to sex (They obtained a picture for sexual gratification, let's put them behind the bars for the next 2 decades and make sure that they won't get a job or a normal life ever again). Again, I do not approve of the so-called "online predator" behavior, far from it. I just think that the lack of balance kinda ridicules the whole system. Sorry if it's just me. I'm quite sure that my first point still firmly stands, whatever you might think of the latter one.

Time for a pint now.

keeping it in the family...

The reason these type of stories receive so much attention is because it distracts us from the uncomfortable fact that most child abuse occurs within the family.

The idea of the "peado" as the stranger, the outsider, usually a loner, the 'other' is easier to swallow. The sad fact is that children (usually girls) are sexually abused by their father, uncle, mother's boyfriend, etc.

If one also looks at certain elements of our society, the sexualisation of youth (e.g. Britany Spears), that the "ideal" women as exemplified by supermodels is slim and shaven (i.e. appears as a girl not a woman), there's also something distasteful. Of course, it's easier to scream about sad bastards like the guy in the article than to have some serious reflection.

For the benefit of Turks...

Chicken!

@ElReg!comments!Pierre

*applauds

Allways nice when a voice of sense gets in first to give the debate a sensible direction!

Hmmm...I had open access to the internet on a private computer when I was much younger. However, apart from some incredibly crafty searching to find topless pics of Geri Halliwell I don't beleive anything worse occurred. Why did it have to be crafty searching? Coz i knew my Dad couold axctively monitor all of my usage. (You try finding topless pics while avoiding terms or sights which include 'nude', 'topless' or 'adult'. Heh. Wonderful lessons in search engines that)

I now several families with young children (well...youngish) and their computer access is through as computer in the lounge. Easy to moinitor, but not in an overly direct way - hey, it can even be a conversation starter between parent and child! i really don't understand parents who slavishly provide their childrens technical whims without any form or copntrol. The car metaphor is perfect.

Oh, btw... to however said 'How could i ever stop my child owning a webcam' or words to that effect....they don't tend to be useful without a computer to go with it!

PS...All my experiences with hardcore porn at that age was from school computers...or the school environment anyhoo. And my school really did try to stop this happening...but couldnt 100% of the time.

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