Web 'friend' preyed on my vulnerable daughter

Sneaking out of her bedroom, the city teenager caught a bus to Penicuik and entered the home of a 19-year-old stranger.

There they had sex twice while his apparently unsuspecting parents sat in the room next door.

Afterwards the bewildered girl – mildly brain damaged after a childhood accident – was put back on the bus home to Edinburgh where she was found wandering the Meadows by police .

It was 1am, she was dishevelled, distressed and confused.

"She's vulnerable," says her despairing mother. "She has slight brain damage which affects her judgement badly.

"She'd said she was 16. But the reality is that she had no idea what she was doing."

What happened was bad enough. But it could, of course, have been much worse.

Last week the perils posed by networking sites and how easily they can be misused by sexual predators was brought into sharp focus with the tragic case of Ashleigh Hall.

A shy 17-year-old, she was inexperienced in relationships and yearned for a boyfriend. When an attractive young man asked to be her Facebook friend and began to shower her with compliments, Ashleigh was understandably flattered.

But "DJ Pete", whose profile picture showed a handsome, bare chested young man, was in fact a bald, bespectacled double rapist.

And he was grooming Ashleigh for what would be his most brutal act – her murder.

The horrific story of how Peter Chapman lured Ashleigh into thinking she was going to meet a Facebook friend before pouncing on her, sent a shiver down the 55-year-old Edinburgh mum's spine. She knows how easy it is for vulnerable girls to be led astray by smooth chat from networking site sex predators.

"My daughter's brain injury puts her at even more risk than most," agrees the Edinburgh mum, who is not being named to protect her daughter's identity.

"She's a typical teenager with all the feelings and curiosity that a teenager has, but she's not able to make rational decisions. And there are plenty of people out there who will use the internet to get at girls like her."

Her daughter's story is one of a young, impressionable, confused girl trying to be more mature than her years – easy prey to smooth online chat that was flattering and exciting at first but which would result in sleazy, degrading sex . . .

"The computer had its good points at first," recalls the mum. "As my daughter recovered from her accident, the computer became her only way of having any kind of social life.

"Then some people appeared asking to be her 'friend' but they were complete strangers. Others who knew she had brain damage sent her messages calling her things like 'mongol'.

"I try to tell her to delete it all but of course it's upsetting."

Her daughter has also been viciously goaded into degrading situations. "I've caught her taking off her clothes in front of the webcam," says the exasperated mum. "They encourage her and she doesn't understand it's wrong."

The most disturbing incident, however, was in summer 2008 when her vulnerable daughter agreed to meet a 19-year-old youth – one of her Bebo friends.

"He was a complete stranger but my daughter regarded him as a 'friend' because he was on her Bebo site. He told her to come and meet him in Penicuik, even what bus to get," she recalls.

"She sneaked out one night. When I realised she was missing, I told the police and she was found at 1am wandering about the Meadows. He'd taken her to his house, sneaked her upstairs, sat her on the bed and took off her clothes.

"My daughter's injury means she's very honest with me," adds the mum. "She said they had sex twice and then he dumped her at the bus stop at Penicuik.

"I told the police and eventually they took away the computers in the house. But in the end all they did was have a word with this lad and he got a wee slap on the wrist.

"The attitude was that my daughter had said she was 16, and if she was able to get on a bus to go to Penicuik, she must have been aware of what she was doing."

A spokesman for Lothian and Borders Police confirmed the mother's version of events and that their inquiries had concluded with no arrest being made.

Tom Roberts, head of public affairs at Children 1st, says the girl's experience throws into focus how difficult such cases are for police and prosecutors.

"These kinds of situations have to be looked at on a case by case basis," he stresses, "but we also need to look very closely at cases like this to ensure we are protecting young people as best we can.

"Police and prosecutors are still getting to grips with online grooming laws.

"This case show that this is an important area for scrutiny and we should be looking very closely to ensure we consider every possible aspect."

As for the girl's mum, she now carefully monitors her daughter's online activity and has a constant struggle to stop the tide of strangers who post "friend" requests to her daughter or send their vile cyberbullying messages.

"I've told her the people on her Bebo page aren't real friends, they're strangers.

"But this generation's definition of what is a 'friend' and mine is something completely different. She doesn't understand that these people might not be who they say they are," she says.

"The trouble is, the computer is such a big part of kids' lives and it does have its benefits, so it's hard to just take it away.

"It's an impossible situation."

Additional reporting by Victoria Raimes

'PEOPLE KIDS MEET ONLINE ARE STRANGERS '

The Child Exploitation & Online Protection Centre (CEOP) receives 5,500 reports a year of potential online abuse – most related to instant messaging and networking sites.

It deals with an average of four reports a day which require urgent action, often involving children who are preparing to meet people they have met online, have been encouraged to act in an inappropriate manner or who are seriously affected by cyberbullying.

It has appealed to the online network industry to create links on networking sites to help users alert CEOP of inappropriate behaviour.

A spokeswoman for CEOP says: "We would encourage parents to talk to children about their use of the internet in the same way as they might talk about 'stranger danger'. Parents should be vigilant and keep open dialogue with their children so they understand that people they meet online and don't know are strangers.

"If they are going to be online friends, then keep personal details to a minimum."