BLACKMAILED over nude photos

With child exploitation cases on the rise, Woman investigates the terrifying phenomenon of sextortion – and the criminals targeting our kids

- KATHRYN KNIGHT

Ben Wilde* was a popular and academic 14-year-old when he received a chatty Facebook message from a girl he’d never met, who claimed she was friends with someone on his school football team. The pair ended up corresponding online about what Ben calls ‘all the normal stuff’; family, school, friends.

Nothing seemed remotely out of the ordinary – until a few weeks later, when the ‘girl’ revealed she was, in fact, a grown man. Now armed with reams of personal information, he made threats against Ben’s family unless he sent him a series of naked photos.

Terrified and vulnerable, Ben complied, only to find the blackmailer upping his demands, asking for the teenager to appear in sexually compromising poses on Skype, before sending the videos and pictures to other men – who in turn bombarded Ben with more requests.

This unfolding horror went on for two years until, believing he’d never find a way out of this nightmare, Ben took an overdose in his bedroom one afternoon after school, at the age of just 16. Thankfully, his mother came into the room and, on seeing the empty tablet boxes, rushed her son to hospital.

Tricked by predators

Now aged 22, Ben can still vividly recall the panic and shame he felt on discovering he was a victim of ‘sextortion’, the name given to a phenomenon in which ruthless criminal gangs target young people online.

They lure them into an online ‘friendship’ via fake or hacked social media accounts and persuade them to share intimate photographs or footage.

They then reveal their true identity and threaten to release the images to loved ones unless the victim either continues to service their requests or sends money.