York teenage girls are relentlessly pursued online by random men – with many sending explicit pictures.
This disturbing scenario emerged when we spoke to a group of girls aged 14 and 15 about their lives in an era dominated by technology.
It followed a City of York Council survey, which found that 71% of young people from a York school said they had received messages from strangers online.
To find out more, YorkMix spoke with a group of young girls who attend a York youth group. The four girls, aged 14 and 15, said that the survey figures didn’t surprise them.
Their personal experiences suggest that the issue may be even worse than initially thought.
The four girls, aged 14 and 15, all go to weekly sessions at Door84 Youth and Community Centre, a registered charity that provides support to young people, adults, those with disabilities, and the wider local community.
Each of the girls shared that they had received messages from strangers online and explained the impact it had on them.
“I have about 50 message requests from random men,” one girl told YorkMix.
She explained that a lot of the messages are often from strangers proposing a “sugar daddy” exchange, offering to send money in exchange for contact.
One girl revealed a list of her Snapchat friend requests, noting that many were from unknown users who had connected using the ‘Quick Add’ feature.
Quick Adds can be requested regardless if users have any mutual connections, meaning requests often come from strangers.
One of the girls explained to YorkMix that even if you don’t accept a friend request, users can still send messages.
According to findings from the NSPCC in November 2024, Snapchat is the most commonly used platform by perpetrators to target children online, with 48% of offenders using it over Whatsapp (12%), Facebook and Messenger (10%), Instagram (6%), and Kik (5%).
One girl shared that “half the time” these users send unsolicited, explicit photographs.
She explained that after the request to connect via Quick Add, the stranger may then send a sexual image along with messages such as, “Hello beautiful, hello darling, would you like some money?”
The girls agreed that this is a common occurrence and it makes them feel “weird”.
One girl revealed that she had even received an unsolicited explicit image from a man in his 70s, who shared his Facebook profile where she found his date of birth.
The girls also discussed strangers connecting with them via the online gaming platform Roblox.
One girl revealed, “I was playing games with this person and then they started naming people that I was friends with, including their second and middle names. I don’t know how they got them. I was saying, why are you doing that? Can you stop?”
When she informed the stranger that she would leave the game, they responded, “No, I’ve got your username down in my notes, and I’m gonna keep looking and find you.”
Another girl shared her own experience on Roblox, “I was playing Adopt Me (a Roblox game) and someone came up to me and in their house they had put two beds together and said, ‘do you want to come to my house and get in bed?'”
In 2024, research by the NSPCC revealed that more than 7,000 Sexual Communication with a child offences were recorded by police last year in the UK.
That’s an 89% increase since 2017/18, when the offence first came into force.
As previously reported, Council public health lead Peter Roderick states that the City of York Council survey findings highlight the challenges that young people face.
The council’s new youth strategy, named ‘Young people Belong in York’ is aimed at the 34,612 children and young people in York, with 14,673 aged between 11 and 17.
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