My child was groomed on a Harry Potter fan site – they’re breeding grounds for paedophiles
Like so many teenagers, Sophie Fraser, then 14, was a devout fan of Harry Potter. So when she began spending time online on a Harry Potter fandom site, her mother, Emily, wasn’t fazed.
Sophie swiftly made a set of seven online friends who were equally passionate about the books and films. Unable to contain their enthusiasm, they soon set up WhatsApp and Snapchat groups and began messaging each other throughout the day, forming a tight social circle.
There was just one problem; that one of the children was not who they said they were, and was in fact an abuser intent on grooming.
Over the course of six months, the perpetrator went on to send 10 letters to Sophie’s home address, as well as a gift of a silver necklace, and encouraged her to visit them at their own home.
“My child was drawn to this site because she just loved the books, and she swiftly made friends there,” Emily explains. “But I was obviously aware I didn’t know any of these children, so as soon as they set up the groups, I asked if I could speak to their parents. All of the children said yes and I spoke to them all. But there was one I never got through to – the number never worked.”
But her daughter became entranced with the mystery person, whom she believed to be a girl of similar age. They swapped addresses and letters began arriving with elaborate discussion of Harry Potter plotlines along with professions of deep love. Then came a small silver necklace in the post.
“It was then that I became completely alarmed,” says Emily. “The letters did not seem like they were written by a child. They had child’s handwriting on the envelope, but the letters inside were in cursive, adult script with suggestive content.
“I rang the police, and they took away the letters and gift. The return address on the post turned out to be a deserted farmhouse in the middle of the Cornish countryside.”
The Telegraph has seen the letters that were sent to Sophie. One begins: “My darling”, while another reads: “My life has been so much better since talking to you. Words really can’t explain how much I love you and care about you.”
Some of the envelopes contained several letters folded up into tiny squares so as to be less detectable. And at times, knowing that Emily was uneasy about the communication, the person addressed her directly, writing at the bottom of one of the letters: “I hope you are in good health, ma’am.”
But the letters were not the worst of it. As police began looking into the situation, Sophie and one of her school friends – who had also joined the online chats – decided to run away to the stranger’s house. They left school one afternoon in October 2022, and were eventually found at their local train station by police at 11.30pm that evening following a nationwide police search, heading to the deserted farmhouse.
“My daughter is vulnerable as she is adopted, but when I spoke to the rest of the children on the WhatsApp group, all of them in some way were vulnerable,” explains Emily. “My daughter was taken in because this person told her that they loved her. But these sites allow anyone on them who can pretend to be whoever they want. [They are a] breeding grounds for groomers”.
“I do really think phones should be banned for under 16s,” she adds. “They just don’t have the life experience to manage them.”
Despite Emily engaging with the police, no one was ever caught or charged, something which the National Society for Child Protection say is tragically common due to the sheer volume of cases.
Almost 34,000 cases of online grooming have been recorded in the past six years (campaigners warn the true figure will be much higher), with numbers up 82 per cent from six years ago. More than 5,500 offences were against primary school children, with under-12s being affected by a quarter of cases. Nearly half of grooming offences took place on Meta-owned platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, while a quarter took place on Snapchat.
Financial exploitation
But it is not just online grooming – where the motive is sexual – that is on the rise, but also sextortion, where children are targeted for money. Just last month, UK teachers were given an unprecedented warning by The National Crime Agency that children as young as five were at risk of financially motivated sexual exploitation, or sextortion for short.
In these cases, criminal gangs from west Africa and southeast Asia use fake profiles and trick children into believing they are in a genuine relationship with someone of a similar age. They then quickly move into sexually explicit communications, and young people are then encouraged or pressured into taking intimate photos or videos of themselves. Blackmailers then threaten to release the images to their family and friends unless they send money or e-gift vouchers online.
According to the National Crime Agency (NCA), the number of children targeted by criminal gangs has risen by 266 per cent in just two years. Some 243 fell victim in 2020 but this rocketed to 890 in 2022.
Tragically, the NCA has warned that at least three children have recently killed themselves as a result. One, Murray Dowey, 16, from Dunblane, Perthshire, took his own life in December 2023, hours after being targeted in a sextortion blackmail plot with potential links to Nigeria.
Murray’s grieving mother Ros Dowey pleaded with other youngsters never to take their own lives, adding: “Social media platforms are making billions and have complete free rein to do what they want – some of which is causing young people to die – with no consequence.”
Unlike in online grooming which chiefly targets girls, in cases of sextortion, 91 per cent of victims are boys, mostly aged between 14-18.
Rani Govender, senior policy officer at the NSPCC, says: “In both grooming and sextortion, often the perpetrator will pretend to be someone else and use a fake profile.
“They will do this on a range of sites that children commonly spend time on, and after gaining trust, will encourage the child to move onto a private messaging app that has end-to-end encryption so the messages cannot be traced. Once a child has been coerced into sending one image, they are then coerced into sending more. We know this is extremely distressing for children. And this is a global threat to children’s safety.”
In the NSPCC’s research, they have uncovered that grooming takes place on up to 150 different apps, games and websites, while the crime survey for England and Wales found almost one in ten children aged 13 to 15 had received a sexual message online in the past year, two thirds of those involving photos.
Company responsibility
In another horrific instance of grooming, Nicki Hawkins, aged eight, fell victim while using an app called MovieStarPlanet. The game is targeted at young girls, and involves them making art books and designing clothes to share with friends.
“My daughter was playing on this app on her iPad. She then came to me one day to say she had a message from a 16-year-old boy asking to be her friend,” says her mother, Sarah. Alarmed, Sarah immediately deleted her daughter’s account and set her up a new one, but the perpetrator found her almost immediately.
“The awful messages started then,” she recalls. “The person was telling her she was sexy and asking her to send photos and to talk to him on Snapchat, which is encrypted. She didn’t understand what was going on.”
Furious and determined to catch the groomer, Sarah took her daughter’s phone and became a sleuth, communicating with the groomer on Snapchat, pretending to be her child and sending simple messages. As Snapchat deletes messages, and sends alerts if someone is taking a screenshot of the conversation, Sarah recorded the conversation using the camera on a different phone.
“The man sent photos of himself playing with himself, and kept asking me – or my daughter – for photographs, which obviously I didn’t provide. His location was also available on Snapchat, so I knew where he lived, and he then began sending photos which included his face. I gathered as much evidence as I could and took it to the police.”
In this instance, the perpetrator was a 36-year-old man who went on to plead guilty at Newcastle Crown Court for two charges of contacting a minor and attempting to contact a minor.
He received an eight-month prison sentence which he has now served. But for Sarah and daughter, Nicki, the ordeal is not over.
“From our first contact with police to the case going to court took three years, over which time the police would regularly visit our house,” she adds. “My daughter had to have therapy to process what happened, and now aged 12, is terrified of something strange happening. I now check her phone every evening. But it is the companies and apps who need to take responsibility for who is on their site. There is no safeguarding for children.”
According to the NSPCC, the Online Safety Act, which came into force in October 2023 and is currently rolling out legislation, should improve the situation as it will make tech companies legally responsible for preventing and dealing with child sexual exploitation. And this week, Ofcom, the media regulator, warned that social media sites will be banned from hosting under-18s if they fail to comply with new safety rules which will see more robust age-verification methods.
But safety charity Internet Matters warns that legislation is no “silver bullet”.
A spokesman says: “We know that the extent to which [teenagers are] being contacted by strangers online, including being sent explicit images, is not only commonplace but normalised by both teenage girls and by parents. It is important that parents remain mindful of the seriousness of unsolicited and sexual contact from strangers online, and reinforce this message to their children. And it is crucial for parents to understand that any regulation won’t be a silver bullet and risks will continue to exist.”
The Telegraph contacted Meta and Snapchat. Meta refused to comment, while a spokesman for Snapchat said: “Any sexual exploitation of young people is abhorrent and our hearts go out to the victims in these cases.
“We work in multiple ways to combat this activity, including cutting-edge detection technology, easy in-app reporting tools and working with the police to support investigations. We also have extra protections for under 18s, including pop-up warnings if they are contacted by people they do not know. Our parental tools allow parents to see who their teens are talking to, when a new friend is added and the declared age on their child’s Snapchat account.”
They added that in the second half of 2022, they detected and actioned 94 per cent of abuse violations reported – an increase from 88 per cent in 2021. Despite these assurances, the NSPCC is warning parents that encrypted messaging platforms, which make the sharing of explicit content and images easier to share, are actually growing.
“We already know perpetrators use end-to-end encryption and we know that, rather than improving safety, major platforms such as Meta, Facebook and Instagram Direct are rolling this out,” says NSPCC’s Rani Govender. “With their current plans, it will be impossible for Meta to detect abuse happening unless a victim reports it, and we know this isn’t the nature of what happens with grooming.
“We need strong implementation of the Online Safety Act to hold tech companies to account. The burden shouldn’t be on children to protect themselves from abuse, but these apps and sites are simply not designed with the safety of children in mind.”
All names have been changed
For support, contact Childline on 0800 1111 or chat to them online.
