I Took My Daughter’s Bully To Court — Part 3
Our fight for justice in the digital playground
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Like all girls her age, our daughter lived with her face on the phone
Our daughter was in 8th grade and had just turned 14. She was safe at school and was almost happy.
Her old school friend Jay reached out over the summer, and the two started hanging out again all the time. He introduced our daughter to two other friends of his, who were also misfits, and our daughter included a few of her school friends from her new school.
Our girl had a gang.
They went shopping together, talked on the phone all night, and got into some trouble.
My husband and I noticed a few red flags in her new gang.
For one, she arrived home early one day after being out with the group.
She told us she had decided to come home because the rest of the gang was going to buy some marijuana and smoke joints.
My daughter has a powerful sense of social justice and dreams of one day working in law enforcement and, as such, is very anti-drug use.
Of course, we were very proud of her for making such a mature decision, but we didn’t like that her social plans were changing because she didn’t want to partake in passing the bong.
Another red flag we couldn’t ignore was when she told me how the other kids in the gang were shoplifting.
My daughter told us how she refused to follow suit and even returned to the store the others had stolen from, returning the items without the other kids’ knowledge.
The red flags became giant banners when my daughter came to me crying, saying she was receiving messages from other girls whom she didn’t know, who did not attend her school, accusing her of creating a fake profile of each of them and posting nasty images and videos.
My daughter swore she had no idea where this was coming from or why they thought it was her.
She didn’t even know them.
A few weeks later, the truth was that her best friend, Jay, was behind it all. When he was caught, he shifted the blame to our daughter.
Many cracks began to appear in this group
There were increasing incidents involving online trolling, fake profiles, and nasty comments, and the truths we were told always lacked authenticity.
We didn’t doubt what our daughter would tell us; however, we could see she was either taking the fall for situations that she had little to do with or being told half-truths about the reality of who was at fault.
Either way, this group became a toxic environment for her, and we had no means of keeping her safe or protected apart from keeping the lines of communication as open as possible.
When it all imploded
The issues progressed further, and my husband and I felt she needed some time away from these kids.
Luckily, we planned a family vacation in Thailand, where we could all recoup after a big and busy year.
It was while we were away, on holiday, that the ultimate shitstorm erupted.
My daughter came to our room and was crying hysterically.
She could barely breathe.
She received a message from Jay saying, “I hate you, I’m done with you, and we will never speak again.”
Our daughter was heartbroken; worse, she genuinely had no idea what had happened to motivate him to send her this message.
She went into damage control, calling and messaging all the group members, and somehow found out that Jay was furious at her for posting a photo of the two of them from 5th grade in the group chat, an image he was embarrassed about.
Instead of contacting her to discuss the issue, he decided to send her a heartbreaking message and then block her on all electronic media.
She had no way of getting in touch with him. He would not hear her out.
The others in the group started to take sides; however, these other kids were much more socially adept than our daughter. So when they acted like her friends on one day and blocked her the next, she could not make any sense of what was going on or who she could trust.
This game-playing continued for days.
Our daughter had one friend in the group whom she felt she could confide in.
This girl seemed to be our daughter’s only sensible and constant friend. This girl was also the only member of the group who attended our daughter’s school.
This girl convinced our daughter that she wouldn’t take sides, would remain neutral, and gave our daughter what was perceived as a safe space to talk openly.
I wonder if this girl succumbed to peer pressure or was easily manipulated.
Still, she deceived our daughter in the worst possible way.
She recorded a conversation with our daughter and sent it to the rest of the group!
As her parents, we genuinely feared for how our kid would ever come back from this.
She was severely depressed, spent all day sleeping, barely eating, and was, understandably, emotional.
She began to make remarks about feeling like it would be better if she were not around.
She was thinking of suicide.
How do you protect your child from the thoughts in their head?
Jay may have told our daughter that he was done with her, but he was not done executing his revenge plans.
His experience in creating fake profiles and hacking into social media accounts was put into practice in a consuming tirade against our daughter.
He created a Snap Chat and TikTok profile with our daughter’s name and contacted everyone from her other real accounts on her friend lists.
He sent messages and videos to other people, posing as our daughter, making racial slurs, threatening violence, and spreading anti-Semitic propaganda.
We are Jewish. Jay is not.
People started to contact our daughter on her other social profiles, telling her she was a terrible person and much worse.
She became afraid to leave the house.
In Australia, we have an E-Safety Commissioner, which is a role whereby anyone experiencing online bullying or abuse can turn to take action or make a complaint. They will investigate the issue and have the power to take down any offensive content.
I reported this to them, and the fake profile was disabled.
Our daughter sent bulk messages from her other profiles, explaining that she had been hacked and was not sending the disgraceful messages.
Jay wasn’t finished.
One evening, our daughter came to us and saw that he had posted our home address in various group chats.
He was now encouraging others to join his crusade against our daughter.
Enough was enough.
My husband and I consider ourselves rational individuals.
We figured if one of our children behaved like this, we would appreciate a fellow parent coming to us to explain what was happening.
Not all parents are rational individuals.
When my husband called Jay’s father to talk about everything, my husband was rudely shut down.
This parent did not give my husband a chance to explain. He didn’t want to hear anything about it.
When my husband told Jay’s father, “If the behavior doesn’t stop, we will need to go to the police,” Jay’s father responded, “Do what you have to do.”
So we did.
We went to our local police station
My daughter gave a statement and showed the policeman evidence of all the online abuse she had received.
The policeman encouraged us to get a Personal Safety Intervention Order against Jay, which would also forbid him to engage in any online abuse or coerce another person to engage in misuse towards our daughter.
We could not protect our daughter online.
We could not protect her from this bullying.
We could seek justice and accountability.
I wanted our daughter to see that the bullies don’t win, that there are consequences for terrible actions, and that she didn’t need to endure all of this suffering only for the bullies to walk away unscathed.
I applied for the safety order and submitted all the evidence my daughter had collected, and our court date was arranged for a few weeks later.
I’d never been to court before
The most I’d ever seen about going to court was from watching Law and Order!
What they neglect to show you on TV is the time you spend waiting for your turn to see the magistrate.
We were expected to be there at 9.30 a.m. Still, waiting until at least 11 a.m. was customary to discover what time your hearing was scheduled.
We were incredibly fortunate to have a school counselor from my daughter’s school turn up to support us through the process.
This amazing woman had a wealth of experience in the juvenile court system and was a huge comfort to us all. Our daughter even listened to her, which was helpful when we had to repeatedly explain every moment of the process.
My daughter kept her composure as best she could until reality confronted her: She would have to face Jay in the courtroom.
This terrified her and made me feel very uncomfortable because, once again, how could I protect her from her feelings?
Jay’s parents had hired a lawyer to represent them.
As we were the prosecuting party, and this was a juvenile court, we didn’t need legal representation.
Their lawyer looked as young as our children. He was fresh out of college, and his nervousness and inexperience were all over his body language.
I began to feel a little sad for Jay’s family. I knew they could not afford a lawyer, and the one they had hired needed to be more prepared.
Their lawyer came in to discuss the matter with us before going to court and told us that Jay’s family was hoping we would be open to accepting an “undertaking.”
An undertaking is when the respondent (Jay) promises our family and the court that they will follow the rules mandated in the Safety Order.
However, if the respondent breaks the rules, the police cannot charge him. The clause in this is that should the respondent break the rules, and we would have sufficient reason to proceed with the intervention order.
We decided to see what was said in court before deciding.
We were told that the court hearing would be short
We should have been given accurate information.
It turned out that our daughter did not have to be present in the courtroom. However, if the magistrate wanted to question her, she must stay close by.
Instead, I was asked to sit on the witness stand, where the magistrate asked me a thousand questions to ensure that I understood Jay’s offenses completely.
The issue we faced was that because Jay used a made-up name and an avatar on these social media platforms, it is nearly impossible to state without any reasonable doubt that he was behind the keyboard.
Someone else might have been creating those accounts, and it is also possible that someone else was sending the messages.
We knew it was Jay. However, the magistrate needed solid proof.
To obtain more proof than just the screenshots of messages sent from a profile with my daughter’s name and photo that we had admitted as evidence, we would need to adjourn and arrange another court date to present more evidence.
The respondent would then be allowed to take that evidence and try to obtain proof that he was not responsible for the incidents. This meant another day in court after that.
If this were the road we pursued, my daughter and Jay would have to testify on a witness stand, and other witnesses could be called in to testify.
A further day in court.
And so on.
I wanted to spare my daughter from enduring more court hearings.
I didn’t want her to have to take on any more of this mental and emotional warfare.
I just wanted Jay to stop.
I wanted Jay to realize the damage he had caused and face the consequences.
I wanted him to learn from his despicable actions.
Ultimately, we decided to agree to the undertaking.
Protecting our daughter meant not having to endure this prolonged situation anymore.
Jay signed the written statement listing every possible contact scenario with our daughter.
It clearly stated that breaking those terms would entail returning to court and facing the alternatives.
As I was leaving the court offices, I came face-to-face with Jay.
In my eyes, he was still the boy from 5th grade whom I welcomed into my home, fed, and drove around with my daughter.
Although he was now 14 years old, I still had some affection for this boy, who was my daughter’s first real friend.
I felt compelled to speak to him.
When we looked at each other, his eyes were soft. He hung his head and was ashamed of his actions.
I said, “Jay, look at me, please.”
As his eyes met mine, I spoke my parting words to him:
“I always adored you. I welcomed you into my home and treated you like one of my own children. Please learn from this whole experience, and go out into the world and be awesome. Don’t be a bystander and let others be victimized, stand up for what is right. You have the power to turn this whole situation into a positive step for your future. I know you won’t let me down.”
As I drove home, I knew my daughter would be safe.
I also knew that if a time ever came when she didn’t feel safe again, she would always be able to come to my husband and me for protection because we were not powerless to help her through.
