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I am sorry to be indiscreet about this sensitive subject but it looks as if this terrible matter is starting to become an issue for a growing number of men of all different economic and academic backgrounds, who get caught in what appears to be a sting operation which could potentially scar them for life. I have seen families falling apart, and men having to move to a different town and even acquire a new identity. Chances are that this is the first time you are hearing about this issue and that what is to follow as you read on, has no direct relevance to you at all. In fact, you might even be a woman and this story is about men being groomed online.
If, as I expect, this subject is completely foreign to you, please do pass this note to other men you know and care about. You could be doing them a big favour.
We hear a lot about young girls being groomed on the internet by older men. This is of course one of the most disturbing subjects concerning internet use. What we do not hear about however, and what you are just about to discover as you read on, is the ease by which men, of all ages, are being groomed by women over the internet, having their photos, videos and personal details stolen and then spread over websites of a certain nature all over the world.
In short, there are some free forums on the internet for people to chat about anything and everything. Naturally these forums tend to be regarded as 'meeting places' where people talk to strangers, exchange ideas and look for relationships, virtual or otherwise. You can normally join up one of these forums for free and start chatting immediately.
Online chatting for many people is just another way to relax from the day's chores by having a relaxing conversation with other online chatters. Most online chat places are friendly places but at times, as you will find out, they could turn out be very dangerous. Male users of chat rooms should particularly be aware that some of the most popular chat rooms are being a host to some very dangerous predators who use chat rooms to make threats and to extort money from male users.
These dangerous predators I am talking about, are believed to be women who have conspired to groom men and then blackmail them.
So this is how it works:
The predator would start a pleasant chat with their victim, and convince them to move the conversation to another chat site to make it more difficult to track their identity. They will then persuade their victim to perform compromising acts, totally naked, in front of a webcam.
Unbeknownst to their victims, the predator will capture the video, save it to their computer, edit it and then post it on hundreds of websites, the nature of which is obvious.
But there is still worse to come. The way the operation appears to be working is this: initially the woman will hunt for her victim. She will try several men before finding one who appears to be naive so far as internet usage is concerned. The predator women do not look for perverts or men who are regular visitors to certain type of websites, as these men tend to be far more suspicious and much more discrete.
They hunt for an easy prey instead. Their typical victim will be a school teacher, a dentist or a police officer. The initial conversation will be very innocent. It tends to be about work, family, location and so on. Suspecting of nothing, the victim will often divulge their children's names and the name of the company they work for. Naturally, once they have given this sort of information, the men become even more trusting.
It is a psychological thing that sharing personal information accelerates the feelings of trust that we feel about our partner to the conversation. Then the woman speaks about herself and surprise surprise it transpires she and her victim have a lot in common.
They both might be a bit lonely, they both could have some marital difficulties to resolve and they both are likely to be craving for love and affection. Neither of them of course will contemplate having an extra marital affair mainly because of their loyalty to their family.
At the suggestion of the woman predator, the conversation will then move to a private chat programme such as Yahoo Messenger or MSN Messenger. This will break the 'continuity of evidence'. Whilst on the public chat, the parties can relatively easily be traced through their account registration details. This will be almost an impossible task with a private chat programme. The move from one chat programme to another will also break the link between the grooming and the shocking action which will follow.
The conversation will continue on the private chat programme and will turn more and more personal until it becomes purely suggestive.
Eventually the victim will be encouraged to perform a compromising act on himself, on camera so that the predator, whose job is almost done can "watch, participate and enjoy". Once the compromising act is concluded, the chat will come to its abrupt end, by the predator simply switching off the programme at her end.
What happens next is very interesting and is probably beyond most people's comprehension.
Following the video conversation which was fully recorded by the female predator onto her computer, she will compile several video clips and will give them titles such as 'John Smith From 91 Cleveland Lane Road, London, A GP and Child Molester Fxxxg Himself In Front of School Children' as well as other similarly colourful commentary. She will then post these videos on to several websites including YouTube and distribute them to countless other websites all over the world. The victim will wake up in the morning to a new reality.
He will first find an interesting email in his mail box from an unknown email address with a short note by his predator and a video attachment. Having watched the horrific video, most victims will immediately carry out an internet search against their own name only to discover that their worst fears have been materialised. By this time, the links which contain the videos have gathered so much popularity, especially following their distribution to the entire world by blogs and emails, that sometimes almost the entire first page of a Google search could be full of links to these videos, each time with a different title and commentary. A total nightmare.
If the victim is married, he will now need to speak to his wife and explain how he allowed this situation to happen. This you can imagine, would be quite a challenging task in itself. It could be a matter of time before his employers will find out, the kids, other family members, the neighbours, business associates or even some thugs who would believe that he is really a child molester or a paedophile. At this stage the victims normally seek legal advice.
They want to know what would happen if, or rather when, certain people discover these videos, in particular their employers. With most employers, it is a sackable offence to bring their organisation into disrepute. Naturally, when we speak to the victims, many of them are in a state of extreme shock. Before we deal with any other issue which troubles them, we, as defamation lawyers give priority to the immediate removal of the videos from the several video hosting websites.
This could be done fairly quickly but of course the sooner we act the better, because as time goes by, the number of links tend to increase and so does the popularity of the videos, as well as the number of people who copy these videos onto their personal computer and could potentially redistribute them in the future. The removal of these videos does not however, guarantee that they will not reappear in the future. It is important that the victims sign up for a monitoring system which operates 24/7 to give early warnings of any future distribution of their compromising videos.
Potentially, these videos can reappear on the internet at any time in the years to come. In any event, with the internet, it is all about speed so the priority is to have these videos removed from video hosts sites as quickly as possible.
I cannot tell for sure what is the precise motive behind the action of the predator woman, but having lately seen so many of these cases I have no doubt that there is indeed a system behind this operation and I am almost convinced that the female predators do this for money. In legal terms, all the victims in such cases have a cause of action in the courts, particularly for breach of privacy.
Although legal action could eventually lead us to the predator's identity this would be very costly and will bring further unwanted attention to the matter, and with it, further reputational damage to the victims. In cases such as this, any publicity is bad publicity.
The police are unlikely to be willing or able to intervene, mainly because of lack or resources and due to the fact that victims choose not to lodge a formal complaint. I will leave it for your imagination to picture the devastation this could cause someone. I have seen male victims changing their name and moving to a different town in order to avoid detection. I also witnessed families falling apart and men feeling suicidal following their involvement as victims in this sting.
Legally, little can be done to go back in time. No level of compensation will persuade any man in his right mind to pursue such a matter through the courts. Sometimes keeping your head down is the best advice to follow. What is left, is for us to spread the word, inform the public and educate people to be more vigilant whilst chatting on the internet. You have to remember that the vast majority of the men who find their lives falling apart as a result of being groomed, are innocent victims who were perhaps guilty of being nave or even a bit reckless, but are certainly not sexual offenders or perverts and do not deserve the potential life sentence which they may have to serve day in and day out.
Most people would agree that it is important to educate both adults and children about some of the dangers of internet chat. These are the dark sides of our new global society and they are not likely to simply disappear. It is only by having people such as yourself passing on this information to others that we can make the internet a safer place for both ourselves and to the next generation.
Yair Cohen is a leading UK online defamation and internet solicitor. Yair is a partner with the niche internet law firm Bains Cohen. The firm is renowned for its innovative approach to resolving client's online reputation problems and for the exceptional level of client and customer care that it practices.
Yair Cohen is believed to be the first lawyer in the United Kingdom to have obtained court injunctions against Google, YouTube and other main internet service providers to force the companies to remove defamatory content from various blogs and websites.
Yair's main strength is in his superior knowledge and understanding of the law in the context of the new realities which the internet presents. The secret to his success in removing defamatory websites is in his unique ability to combine vast amounts of technical knowledge with a unique and creative way of applying it to the law and to business reality.
Visit Bains Cohen Solicitors http://www.bainscohen.com/
Visit Yair Cohen's blog http://www.yaircohenuk.com/
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