When a young Perth teen recently opened up about sextortion threats, he had already been trying to seek help alone for weeks.
Jayden Smith*, 15, appeared in the doorway of the shed where his father Grant Smith* had been pottering throughout the day.
“I was having a beer and just tidying up, putting tools away and he just wandered out … he looked at me, and then kind of looked away, and then he said, ‘I’m being blackmailed’,” Grant told 7NEWS.com.au.
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“He said, ‘I met this girl online. We chatted for a while. She sent me some pictures, and then I sent one back. Now she wants money’.
“He said that they just keep bombarding him with messages.
“Where’s the money? We’re going to release the picture. We’ll send it to everyone in your school. That sort of thing.”
The whole thing unfolded on partially encrypted messaging apps — the conversation started on Snapchat but, after a few days, Jayden was asked to move to Telegram.
Jayden was sent nude images of a young woman who he thought he was speaking to, and he responded with a nude image of himself, capturing his face in the photo.
That is when they started demanding money — just $50, a sign that the criminal behind the messages could be operating from an offshore location where the small sum would go a long way.
Grant gave the likely truth of the matter to his son straight: “It’s not a girl.”
‘If you survive, you can have the money’
Grant was already aware of the deadly impact that sextortion can have.
“By this point I was, not visibly but internally, absolutely raging,” Grant said.
Melbourne teen Mac Holdsworth died by suicide in 2023 after the nude photo he sent to someone he believed to be a teenage girl was shared to all his contacts, after several demands for money. A 47-year-old man linked to the sickening crime was later jailed for six months.
Just over a year earlier, 17-year-old Ballarat teen Rohan Cosgriff died by suicide half an hour after he started receiving sextortion threats.
Grant immediately gave Jayden options: “Either I will deal with it for you right now, or tomorrow morning we will get on the phone to one of those services and we’ll get you some help that way.”
Jayden chose the first option. His dad would not scroll up or read any previous exchanges but would message the sextortion scammer himself, allowing Jayden to read and approve the first message before hitting send.
“Then I just absolutely unleashed and basically said to them, ‘If you really know where he lives, what school he goes to, just tell me where to be, I’ll be there, I’ll bring $2000’,” Grant said.
“And if you survive, you can have the money.”
Grant’s threats were met with mocking laughter emojis but, after he tried calling the criminal multiple times, they blocked him. Then Jayden deleted the messages and blocked the number.
“When I was done and I handed (Jayden) the phone back, I could feel that my hands were shaking.”
‘It was clearly weighing on him’
Grant said that Jayden’s behaviour in the weeks beforehand suddenly began to make sense.
“At least twice in the two weeks prior, I could tell something was off,” Grant said.
“He had a couple of days off school in that period of time as well.
“It was clearly weighing on him significantly.
“He gave me a hug, went inside, and went to bed, which was surprising because of the time.
“But I assume there had probably been some sleepless nights in the two weeks before that.”
Grant and Jayden chose to erase all evidence of the incident, assuming it was perpetrated as part of an offshore operation that would give up once the likelihood of financial extortion seemed unlikely.
The Australian Centre To Counter Child Exploitation (ACCCE) Commander Joanne Cameron told 7NEWS.com.au that her team would usually advise capturing evidence to pass on to authorities.
“We definitely would encourage the recording of any of the material, not the actual abuse material of course, but any identifiers and any information with respect to who has been committing the crime against that young person,” she said.
Fear appears to fog pathways to support
The ACCCE directly investigates reports of child exploitation, and is the best first-port of call for minors looking for the next steps when receiving sextortion threats.
“The ACCCE is set up to provide exactly that practical advice support to victims of child sexual exploitation,” Cameron said.
There were 100,194 reports of online child sexual exploitation made to the ACCCE in the last financial year alone — that is 275 reports a day.
Jayden was not one of them. Despite a wealth of support resources online, he had not known where to get the help he wanted.
In the weeks before he spoke to his father, Jayden had privately contacted Kids Helpline, e-Safety, and Crime Stoppers — these services each have their own regulatory roles, including in relation to sextortion victim support.
Put simply, the main function of the Kids Helpline is mental health support and advice; e-Safety can issue takedown notices of child sexual abuse imagery posted online; and Crime Stoppers supplies anonymous information to police.
These services all work closely with the ACCCE, and could each have offered Jayden support including a redirection to the ACCCE.
But Jayden came away with the understanding that these services “couldn’t do anything” for him. It may have been that in the confusion of prolonged distress these jurisdictional referrals were perceived as knock-backs.
“We receive a lot of referrals, particularly from eSafety,” Cameron said, adding she was “confident that any other agency that is talking to kids, where there is sufficient concern for the welfare and the wellbeing of the child” was also referring them on.
A Kids Helpline spokesperson also told 7NEWS.com.au: “Depending on the circumstances, a Kids Helpline counsellor may talk with the young person about practical steps such as preserving evidence, blocking or reporting users, reporting the activity to the relevant online platform and accessing specialist support.
“Importantly, a young person does not need to have a parent or guardian with them to receive counselling from Kids Helpline or to access relevant reporting pathways.”
That is important, because Jayden believed he could not get practical help because he did not have a parent or guardian with him — and the reason why that is not the case is a grim one.
“We often deal with victims of child abuse where the perpetrator is actually that legal guardian,” Cameron said.
‘Sit down at the table tonight’
Cameron warned parents not to wait to have conversations about support pathways until the day their child potentially becomes a victim.
“Sit down at the table tonight and talk to your teenagers about what you would do if this happened, not when it’s happened,” Cameron said.
“Until we’ve got those conversations happening across the dining room tables of Australia, we’re still always going to be sitting there with kids feeling that they’re not supported.”
In recent years the ACCCE has been involved in both local sextortion-related arrests and the dismantling of global scam centres, shutting down a sextortion hub in Nigeria where two men were arrested in relation to an Australian teen’s suicide.
She told the AFP that parents being onboard with prevention is critical, “because ultimately, this is not an issue we can police our way out of”.
Cameron also urged children who do not feel as though they can speak to their parents to speak out to another trusted adult.
National Child Protection Week runs from September 6 to 12, and this year’s theme is: “Every conversation matters, shifting conversation to action.”
Parents, carers and teachers are urged to inform themselves about the risks their children face online, with the latest edition of the ThinkUKnow education program, which includes free, age-appropriate material covering a range of important topics.
If you need help in a crisis, call Lifeline on 131114. For further information about depression contact beyondblue on 1300224636 or talk to your GP, local health professional or someone you trust.
