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THE PARENTS OF a 17-year-old boy who took his own life less than two weeks ago have criticised the police and said parents need to keep a closer eye on what their children are doing online.
Tyrone schoolboy Ronan Hughes was tricked into sending explicit photos of himself through social media after receiving images from someone he thought was a girl. It turned out the messages were from a gang of scammers based in Nigeria. They demanded more than £3,000 from the shocked teenager, threatening to send the photos of him to all of his friends.
In an interview with The Irish News, his parents Gerard and Teresa said their son confided in them three days before his death and his father took him straight to the local police station. They were told to ignore the blackmail. Two days after the teen’s death, police did manage to trace the website and shut it down but the boy’s father said that was too late.
“We were very disappointed but we sat down and told him that if the images were published, it would blow over in a couple of weeks and we’d deal with it,” Gerard Hughes said. Just hours after Ronan found out a friend had been sent a link to the pictures, his father found his body in a field by their home.
He said he believes his son would still be here if he had been given more reassurance by police that they would try to track down those responsible in the days before his death. However the main message he and his wife want to get out is to parents.
“There’s no point in a parent taking a phone off a child when they don’t know what they’re doing themselves or how to access the technology themselves. My 13-year-old know more than I do and that’s not right. We just don’t want this tragedy to happen to anyone else.”
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Rich people talking about corruption. Climate change with all the private jets. Hunger and poverty while paying 40 euro for a whiskey. Billionaires telling people to tighten their belts while flying in private jet and bringing the nannies. Oh the irony.
We live in a country that have a government for the rich and only the rich,and that has been the case for decades.Time has come to get rid of these people for good.
The more we learn of these guys dishing out the rules but not living by them, the more likely there will be mass civil unrest. What’s brewing around todays world is unfortunately unpleasant… And doesn’t bode well for the future. These guys need to watch scrooged or a Christmas carol.
Or in their case. A Muppets Christmas Carol.
Enda: ‘Now what colour tie shall I wear today’!
I brought my nanny on the train to Dublin once. Grandad said he was glad to get rid of her for the day.
Really wish I could just ignore the nonsense these idiots are spouting but unfortunately they hold the power and the wealth. They make me sick, especially enda the lick arse!
Tough luck if I wasn’t invited?.They’re all a bunch of tossers in expensive suits.
Is bono there?
Bono not rich enough!!! Enda is there on taxpayers money !!!
I thought davos was someone’s gaff in finglas
Seen the humble pilgrim Archbishop returning from the conference 2 years ago. His cash strapped church could only afford to send him Business class on Swiss air!
What’s your point Wayne? or are you just ‘bashing the bishop’.
Strap on
Norman, his church is unable to pay compensation to it’s victims, and the bishop who lives in a 50 room palace & is one of the largest land and property owners wants the government to take action!
Wayne his church is able to pay but our government did a deal with them.
Norman check again, they are about a quarter of a billion short on what they owe under that deal!
But obviously that’s ok, with you
This is mind blowing ignorance on the part of Al Gore.
He said that the earth’s mantle is “several million degrees” at “2 kilometers or so down”and that the “crust of the earth is hot” too.
He said that the Arctic ice would have disappeared by 2014.
His homes use more power than some small nations.
He is a bloviating self-declared genius who has built up a fortune of over $200 million on the back of his involvement in the climate scam.
This is like some episode of Dynasty isn’t it? I’m sure many of them need minders/ nannies… to keep them away from, you know, the poor, the old, the people who work… oh, you people! Hey, where’s Mitt?
al gone still sprouting his man made global warming crap. how many private jets are there yet its the common person using the shower for too long that does all the damage.
all the data presented supporting climate change theory leaves out the correlation between it and solar activity.
however the green market is big business and the right people are making money. if any researcher wants to put out data against man made climate change they will not get funded and ngos/think tanks will go all out to discredit them.
its a con job. the cultural Marxists love it. look into the matter for yourself.
too long to read.
@John Fergus, the fool Gore advises Obama and has made presentations to congress as their adviser and yet will not enter into any debate with scientists who can call his bluff.
Hi John,
Al Gore may be a hypocrite and a bit of a tool, but ‘man-made global warming’ as you like to call it is not ‘crap’.
There’s a tonne of peer-reviewed articles online, but NASA is a good place to start: http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/
Happy reading.
Remember, when NOAA and NASA declare “hottest years”, just how poor their surface temperature coverage is. Just 6000 stations in the northern hemisphere, none in much of China or northern Russia or the Arabian Peninsula to mention just a few places and far too many of the 6000 are estimated, either because the stations are closed, or have missing months.RSS recently released the satellite measured global temperature for 2014 and found it is not even close to a new record.
I wonder could anyone with 200k attend?
Imagine winning the Euromillions and telling the lads … ‘Here I’m off to Davos for the week to have the craic with Inda and DOBS … Totes!’
Jeff must have been schooled by CJ
Our green isle is densely populated by us green eyed and immensely jealous moaners….
Is it just the angle of the foto or is our Enda getting a bit of a belly on him? All that rich food and champers……..not everyone is suffering due to the economy…….but 1 in six children in the Republic don’t have enough warm cloths or heat……”let them eat cake”……
Im a business grad; trying to work out why a bishop is there? Economies of Scale, probably…
have your say