Parents of sextortion victim urge others not to feel ashamed and to seek help

Murray Dowey, 16, from Dunblane, near Stirling, ended his own life last year after being tricked by someone online.

Sextortion is a form of online blackmail which involves criminals targeting people – often young adults and teenagers – around the world, threatening to expose intimate images of them if they do not co-operate.

Mark and Ros Dowey said they had no idea anything was wrong before their son died.

Mr Dowey told the BBC: “He went up to his room, and he was absolutely fine. And you know, we found him dead the next morning”.

His mother said: “We had no chance to intervene, to notice there was something wrong and try and help and fix it.”

Commenting on the criminals behind such scams, she said: “I don’t know if they have any humanity to stop and think about what they’re actually doing, but you know you have to question, how would they feel if it was their child or their little brother or their friend?

“You can’t put into words how painful it is and how devastating, and how that gap, that Murray gap, is just going to be there for the rest of our lives.”

Mrs Dowey said it was heartbreaking to think that her son’s last moments were spent in fear as he received threatening messages.

And Mrs Dowey urged anyone who fell victim to sextortion not to be ashamed and to seek help.

She said: “Everything in life passes. There’s nothing that is worth taking your own life for.

“So if something happens to you, put that phone down and go and get somebody you trust and tell them it’s happened, and don’t be ashamed at what you’ve done.

“Thousands of children are sharing images and what have you. It’s happened.”

Mr Dowey added: “Put the phone down, go and talk to somebody, it really won’t be the end of the world.”

The couple are speaking out ahead of the launch of a new campaign to help protect young people from sextortion which is being launched by Fearless, the youth service of Crimestoppers.

Mrs Dowey said: “You know, he didn’t deserve to die in the way he did, and it breaks my heart to think that his last few moments are hours of getting relentless messages and threats and the terror he must have felt and the panic, that’s one of the hardest things to think what his last sort of few moments or hours in life were like.”

The couple also hit out at tech companies who they said could do much more to crack down on sextortion.

Mr Dowey said: “Social media companies could do so much more, and the reason they don’t do so much more is money. It will stop them making more billions than they’re making.”

Mrs Dowey said: “They make big headlines about caring and trying to stop, but they need to put their money where their mouth is.

“The technologies are there for them to stop so many of these crimes being perpetrated, so much of the harm being shown and then forced onto kids through algorithms.

“But they don’t, you know, they don’t care, because all they care about is profits.”

Andy Burrows, chief executive of Molly Rose Foundation, set-up by the family of Molly Russell, who ended her life at age 14 in November 2017, after viewing harmful content on social media, said: “Sextortion is taking young lives but so far the response from tech companies has been piecemeal and insufficient.

“It is disappointing that Ofcom’s proposed approach to tackling illegal harms under the Online Safety Act will do little to stop this horrific crime, with even platforms known for this abuse claiming they already comply.

“It is increasingly clear that we need a new Online Safety Act that embeds a duty of care on tech companies to systemically protect children from harm.”