..obviously we don't know much yet, Alex but I would guess that it's quite probable that he suffers a mental illness...

ah no, that's terrible Smudgie :hug:

yea, i think it's fair to assume that he has a mental illness.

Yes, this rare incident surely confirms that we must spy on our 14 year olds social activities at all times, block all websites except Wikipedia and YouTube (but only the clean videos) and also I think it would be prudent to hide GPS trackers in their shoes. Or maybe under the skin, as shoes might be removed.

We also need to see significant investment in cotton wool production facilities, as currently there is simply not enough to meet the ever-increasing requirements.

... Seriously ... As tragic as this incident is, it does not justify (further) limits on the freedom and privacy of teenagers. Leave them alone!

A little bit of light at the end of this tunnel.
The murderer decIded at the very last minute to plead guilty.
Daughter and kids were due at the courts today, not heard from her yet but it was on the lunchtime news.

Hopefully his school friends can now move forward from this horrendous episode.

Yes he pleaded Guilty
as he knew he would be found Guilty


Evil Killer

Louis Danes looks like Jack O'connell.

I'm glad he changed his plea smudgie, those who knew and loved him can be spared the pain of a lengthy trial. Hopefully there will be more awareness raised on the dangers of internet grooming following this so other families are spared this heartache.

I think that hopefully we will start to see less of this sort of thing happening in generations to come. It is a huge problem. I've been online since I was 13 and I've encountered all sorts of absolute freaks, and even had what I can only assume were "grooming attempts" of sorts myself. One was a young attractive female... RAGING NEO-NAZI... Who was constantly trying to turn me into a white supremacist. Another was a guy in his 20's who popped on and off a forum I was on, who seemed to genuinely believe that he was "a demon" and was always trying to get teenagers to essentially come and live with him in some sort of cult. I thought he was full of **** until a girl I talked to from that forum actually went to his house (the idiot) and apparently it genuinely was full of young, gothy teenagers (mostly girls) who basically worshipped this guy. She left, quickly. Terrifying.

Anyway, basically these attempts seem to be very common and Banning kids from the Internet or monitoring constantly is impossible. I think it'll hopefully be less of an issue in future as my generation and beyond as parents will have "grown up online" and will be able to better prepare our own children for what to expect and how to keep safe online. A huge part of the problem at the moment is that, for many parents of teenagers, the online world is completely alien to them and they have no real understanding of the bonds and friendships that can form (most completely genuine, a tragic few very sinister).

'Yes, this rare incident surely confirms that we must spy on our 14 year olds social activities at all times'

'Anyway, basically these attempts seem to be very common and Banning kids from the Internet or monitoring constantly is impossible.'

You just totally contradicted yourself.. :/

Didn't :/. The incident (it ending in violence / death) IS rare, and I was obviously being sarcastic when I said in that first post that we should be spying. In the second post I said that ATTEMPTS by dodgy people to contact or influence young people are fairly common. My point in both posts is that we shouldn't / can't monitor or restrict our young people because of rare occurrences of violence, and then that as the adult world becomes more tech literate, we will hopefully be able to pass on the social skills for kids to deal with and understand the situations they might encounter and how to stay safe WITHOUT someone constantly looking over their shoulder.

I don't see the contradiction.

Nope again that makes no sense,it the attempts to contact are common how does that equate that the incidences of violence are rare?

12,431 children contacted childline last year due to online grooming.

Sexual abuse and
online sexual abuse
Young person has been
persuaded/forced by an adult/
older person to take part in
sexual activities, or encouraged
to behave in a sexually
inappropriate way. Includes online
sexual abuse such as exposure
to sexually explicit images,
grooming, sexting etc.

http://www.nspcc.org.uk/globalassets...-2012-2013.pdf

Of course it makes sense - very few of the attempts result in an actual assault and obviously any that end in murder are rare enough to be front page news i.e. Exceptional circumstances.

My point is and has always been that if young people / teens are suitably prepared and skeptical in their "online encounters", know not to give out personal details, know that if someone won't chat on Web Cam then they're potentially not who or what they say they are, know (for later teens, 16+) only ever to meet someone in public and with a group... All of the things that the "net generation" has learned through experience, then it shouldn't be too difficult for most people to keep themselves safe.

In other words I think it should be perfectly possible to arm adolescents with the skills to navigate their online encounters safely on their own rather than wrap them in cotton wool and try to ensure that they don't have those encounters at all. That's what these sorts of stories prompt a lot of people to want to do - monitor, supervise, censor... And that's exactly what leads to kids "getting sneaky" and taking risks, getting themselves into bad situations without anyone knowing.