A story no parent can afford to ignore / Author: anonymous
Jen Hoey 
A brave father shares the story of how his son was groomed by a predator via an online game, and the devastating consequences of this.
Here is his story:
My son Zac was 11 years old and loved playing Fortnite. I felt I had things covered — he played in the lounge, and I sometimes played with him.
Early last year, I noticed frequent phone calls on his phone coming from someone named BFF. When I questioned Zac, his response was simply “it’s just a friend from school”. I felt unsettled.
One afternoon Zac received up to 30 calls, all of which he did not respond to. I asked him again who BFF was, and he couldn’t tell me. At this point, many red flags were raised, so I took his phone and started going through the messages. What I found left me feeling disgusted, angry, and shocked.
Initially there was just some innocent chit-chat via WhatsApp, but this started to evolve into requests for ‘pics’ in exchange for V-Bucks (in-game currency used in Fortnite). Zac had clearly hesitated as one message said “so don’t you want to use the voucher, are you going to send a pic or not?” I subsequently saw that my son had sent multiple compromising photos of himself to this person.
I reported the matter to the local police, who took the phone and said they’d be in touch. I heard nothing for a few months and eventually was told by a detective that it involved an overseas scam and not much more could be done.
This did not sound right to me. I had on one occasion heard my son talking on speaker phone to a person who had an Australian accent. I approached a friend of mine who works in Cyber Security, and using some of the information I had, we tracked the ‘friend’ to an Australian address.
The matter was eventually placed in the hands of the Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation’s Task Force Argos. I subsequently was informed via an email that the matter had been closed and arrests had been made. No further information could be provided to me as other children and players had been involved.
How did I respond to my son? With compassion. He knows that these were bad people, and he knows why I am more vigilant now about his activity online.
During this period, however, I felt tortured that I had been unable to prevent this. I know there remains, to this day, photos circulating on the Dark Web of my son and even though his identity cannot be seen in the photos due the angle at which they were taken, it distresses me to know that these images are out there. My mental health suffered considerably as a result, leading to six suicide attempts. I began to abuse my medication in an attempt to ‘numb’ my feelings, which resulted in dependency. I have since found support and have turned my life around — I know my son needs me and that I need to find a way to forgive myself. Part of this journey of healing is sharing my story with others as a warning.
My message to parents is clear:
No matter how safe you think your child is, or how responsible you think they are, never be complacent with their online behaviour because all it takes is one person to figure out how to manipulate them and get them wrapped around their finger. In my son’s case, the grooming had taken place over many months; they spent months chipping away at him.
Always check your child’s online activity, their messages including their outbox and see what they’ve been doing because what may seem like something innocent to them may lead to something that can be life destroying. Predators are masters at their own game and our unsuspecting children can easily become their puppets.