I was abused by a man I met on an online game aged 14… now I fear for my baby – shutting down Omegle isn’t enough
A CHILD sex abuse survivor has told how she fears for her newborn baby 13 years after she met her abuser on an online game – because not enough has changed.
Former beauty queen finalist Danielle Armitage, 27, has blamed technology giants for not doing enough to protect children – after she gave birth to her first baby just eight months ago.
Just weeks ago another woman, known as Alice, successfully shut down anonymous chat website Omegle a decade after it randomly paired her with a paedophile who made her his digital sex slave.
But Omegle isn’t the only site predators use to reach vulnerable children.
Danielle told The Sun: “When I was 14 I met a guy in the chatroom of a game I was playing. He told me he was 17 and we became friends, once we had that trust numbers were exchanged.
“I didn’t have many friends at school so the affection was nice. He talked to me like I was the only one that mattered. We had a bond, we became good friends.”
FIRST MEET
After a week of texting, Danielle agreed the boy could pick her up just down the road from her school.
But when she got in the car, she realised he was older than he’d said.
She added: “He said to get in the car. I got in and realised he was older and just froze. He’d started driving straight away. I was absolutely terrified.”
The man, she would learn later, was married 49-year-old John Graham Edwards.
He drove her to isolated Delamere Forest in Cheshire, close to her home at the time, and parked the car in a secluded area.
The former Miss Cheshire contestant said: “He told me to get out the car and took photos of me, he told me to take my clothes off, then it turned sexual.
“He was violent and aggressive in the forest. Back in the car he strangled me and threatened me. He told me he’d hurt my family. I was terrified.”
Edwards dropped her off around the corner from her house, which she has never understood, because she didn’t tell him where she lived.
She added: “He told me to tell my Dad I’d been with a friend. I ran home and went straight to my bedroom. I felt sick, I didn’t know what to do.”
Edwards used the pictures as blackmail to force her to meet him three more times.
The abuse only ended when Danielle’s Dad confiscated her phone after she came home drunk, and saw messages from him.
She woke up the next day to a house full of police officers, and wouldn’t see her phone again for three years.
“I didn’t get my phone back. I felt like I’d done something wrong. It made it worse. I felt like it was my fault and I still feared for my family.”
Edwards, from Sandbach, Cheshire, pleaded guilty to grooming three girls under the age of 16 and was sentenced to five years in prison for a string of 20 sex offences.
Now, Danielle has just become a mum for the first time, and is scared her son won’t be protected online.
She said: “I gave birth in August. It terrifies me to think what could be out there.
“Technology firms need to do more to stop this happening. Children have a right to explore the virtual world without coming across harm.
“You’re always told as a child ‘don’t speak to strangers’, the onus is on kids.
“It’s always children being careful and having to watch what they’re doing. It’s never that you can just go and enjoy having fun online. It’s always put on children. It’s a lot of pressure.
“And with kids if they’re told not to do something or told you can’t go on this website, they want to do it more.”
BOYS AT RISK
Victoria Green, chief executive of the Marie Collins Foundation, which supports victims of online abuse, revealed boys are just as at risk online.
She told The Sun: “Young males can often be victims of sextortion, where their images are used to blackmail then into handing over cash.
“But there are a lot of young men who don’t come forward. There’s so much silencing and victim blaming.”
Reports of self-generated child sex images, meaning photographs taken by the victims themselves, have more than doubled in the last five years.
Some 68,000 reports were made in 2020, a figure which skyrocketed by 2022, to 199,363, according to the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF).
Each report is one webpage IWF has confirmed contains self-generated child sex abuse content, and taken action to remove.
Each individual webpage could contain up to thousands of images.
Just 923 men were victims of reported self-generated child sex images between January and August last year.
This is compared to 189,603 reports involving female victims.
So far, up to September this year, there have already been a total of 190,790 reports.
The stark figures come as the Online Safety Act 2023 came into law on October 26.
The act made technology companies more accountable for illegal and harmful content seen online.
But Ms Green says companies like Facebook’s owner Meta aren’t doing enough to stop this kind of abuse.
Ms Green added: “Meta has been giving perpetrators a place to hide without detection.
“It wants to bring in end-to-end encryption on its content. It’ll take away the ability to scan platforms for child abuse imagery.
“Meta currently reports hundreds of thousands of images to the authorities. With end-to-end encryption this will stop.”
LIFE-SENTENCE
Meta has said the changes will support its users right to privacy.
But Ms Green adds victims of sexual abuse images have a right to privacy too, and shouldn’t have to live with the fear of those images being shared.
“It’s a life sentence for survivors,” she added. “They go through life not knowing if their neighbour, co-worker, father-in-law has seen these photographs or videos of them when they were a teenager.
“Every time that image is shared that child is re-abused. It has to stop.”
Rani Govender, NSPCC, Child safety online policy worker, revealed the charity has seen “a significant increase in grooming crimes”.
She added: “Children are drawn to talking to strangers online because it’s interesting and different.
“It’s an exciting way to learn about the world and different communities. We want them to have fun experiences online, but platforms need to make sure age assurance systems are working. The onus cannot be on kids.”
A Meta spokesman said: “The overwhelming majority of Brits already rely on apps that use encryption to keep them safe from hackers, fraudsters, and criminals.
“We don’t think people want us reading their private messages so have spent the last five years developing robust safety measures to prevent, detect and combat abuse while maintaining online security.
“We recently published an updated report setting out these measures, such as restricting people over 19 from messaging teens who don’t follow them and using technology to identify and take action against malicious behaviour.
“As we roll out end-to-end encryption, we expect to continue providing more reports to law enforcement than our peers due to our industry leading work on keeping people safe.”
A Government spokesman said: “Under the Online Safety Act, social media services like Omegle will be subject to ground-breaking new duties to stop illegal content being shared on their sites and to keep children safe.
“Companies will be required to take proactive action in tackling online child sexual abuse and risk facing fines that could reach billions of pounds if they do not comply.”
KEEPING KIDS SAFE ONLINE
Internet expert Allison Troutner listed eight ways to keep kids safe online:
- Consider a family “tech agreement”
- Report any harmful content that you see
- Balance safety with independence
- Keep the computer in a common space
- Password-protect all accounts and devices
- Update your operating systems regularly
- Install security or antivirus software programs and a VPN on your computer
- Set parental controls
Find out more about each step in this article by The Sun.
