An Irish dad has told of the horrifying moment he discovered that his eight-year-old son was being groomed online by an older man whilst gaming.
Jeff told Newstalk Lunchtime Live's Andrea Gilligan how he made the shocking discovery after buying his son Matthew an Xbox Live for Christmas.
He said: "He's almost 18 at the moment, and he's quite tech savvy, very well in tune with coding and gaming, but at the time that this situation happened, he was eight years of age.
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"What we did was we decided to treat him. For a Christmas present, he got an Xbox 360 and a game called Minecraft. So, as usual, we did our research, and we had a look at Minecraft and realised it's just a building block game. Very simple. There's nobody getting hurt, nobody getting killed, and then the following year, we got him an Xbox Live.
"Of course, we didn't do our research on that one, but we didn't realise that 'Live' actually meant he could play games with the world. With anybody in the world and open up accounts and open up friends.
"So saying that what I did was from day one… we made sure that my son was in full view of myself and my wife in a room at the back of the house there, where we could see him from the kitchen playing games.
"At the side of the TV, I had a list of all his friend's names and all of their gaming handles codes and names as well, so at any stage, I could go on have a look to see who he's playing with and make sure I recognise that its somebody within their social network so we understand who is playing the games with him to keep him safe.
"But one day, I just noticed a bit more conversation going on that didn't sit well with me, so we called him in for dinner. I went back into the room, and I could see there was a bit of correspondence going on or texting there between him and another gentleman called Ryan.
"So when Matthew was finished his dinner, he went back to playing with Ryan, but I asked Matthew then to put him on speaker to let me hear his voice. He sounded more like a mature teen than an eight-year-old, and that's when our alarm bells went up."
Jeff said that 'Ryan' was purporting to be an 11-year-old child, but gardai later told him and his wife that he was, in fact, a 29-year-old man from Co Derry.
He said: "We reported it to the guards, and in fairness to the guards, they were extremely helpful and very professional.
"He (Ryan) was already registered on a list up north with similar offences."
Before going to the guards, Jeff looked at the messages 'Ryan' was sent to his son.
He said: "I could see from the correspondence he didn't sound young, so I asked 'Ryan' where he was from, his age. His voice and his tone changed, so I switched the game off had a look at the text correspondence that had been going on for the past couple of weeks on the side of the screen, and you could see that the texts were getting a little bit more explicit.
"He was asking my son to buy himself an iPad, take photographs of himself, make sure he kept himself and my son as friends as private and confidential and a secret.
"I could see on texts where my son had asked him why do we keep this a secret, and he said 'all gamers have secrets'.
"So that's where it raised alarm bells for us. We took screenshots of it on my iPad. I went around to the garda station, our local one, and then I went around to another one as well, and I gave them copies of the screenshots, and that's where we left it with the guards.
"Then we got a phone call about 3 or 4 weeks later to say that it's been dealt with, and they did confirm that it was indeed a 29-year-old from Derry."
Jeff said that the scariest part of the situation was discovering that 'Ryan' had made plans with his eight-year-old son to meet up.
He said: "This is all happening on a Friday and the most upsetting part about it was that he had arranged to come down south.
"There is a Centra store not far from our house, probably about a 3-minute walk, and at eight years of age, he (Matthew) still wasn't allowed go to the store by himself at all… so he had arranged to meet my son at the store the following day at 2pm.
He added: "This was literally I'd say an hour before I intervened… what got me interested was they were talking about their location online and talking to each other on the headphones, and I could hear the mention of a local shop. That's why I got interested in what conversation was going on because my son was not allowed near the shop at all, and the last text message that was sent to my son, 'Ryan' up north, wanted the full address and if my son could get the Eircode."
Jeff and his wife were left deeply upset by the discovery and found it hard to believe how easy it was for someone like 'Ryan' to infiltrate their home.
He said: "Myself and my wife were very upset about it. It was just too close for comfort because, at any stage, my son could have left the house the following day and gone for a walk or gone to play football with his friends in the field, and we wouldn't have known about it.
"And that's where it just hit home. It took a good few weeks before we could come round to terms of how easy it was for someone to infiltrate our home and have that conversation with my son for three to four weeks without us finding out."
Webwise.ie issues a number of tips for parents to keep their kids safe while gaming both on and offline. They include:
- Check the age rating of the games your children are playing and ensure games are age appropriate.
- Advise your child not to share personal details online or in their profiles. In the case of teens, it may be best to discuss the dangers of sharing information online.
- Encourage your child to play fairly and treat other gamers with respect.
- Use family safety settings to protect your child from discovering games which may not be age/content appropriate.
- For many parents it is useful to agree time limits on gaming with their children.
- Playing games online can leave computers/devices open to risk of a virus. Protect your computer by ensuring you have up to date anti-virus software in place.
- Ensure your child knows how to report or block other players who engage in online harassment or any other unsuitable behaviour.
Find out more here.
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