‘I used to be pressured to ship specific image at 13 and I’m fortunate to be alive – change is required’

EXCLUSIVE: Roxy Longworth, now 23, has called for software making it impossible for kids to send or receive nude images to be compulsory on phones after years of stalling

A woman who was blackmailed after being pressured to send an explicit photo when she was just 13 has pleaded for software to protect kids to be compulsory on phones.

Roxy Longworth almost didn’t survive her teenage years as her mental health spiralled after the image was shared around her school. Her friends shunned her, she suffered horrendous abuse and blamed herself in spite of the coercion that led to her sending it.

Roxy was put on suicide watch after the guilt and shame she felt led her to start self-harming. A decade later, she warned many more young people are going through the same ordeal as pressure to send nude photos is becoming more commonplace.

She called on the Government to force phone manufacturers to roll out new tech that prevents children from taking, sharing and receiving explicit photos. Despite such software being available, there is currently no legal requirement for it to be installed on kids’ devices.

It comes after former Safeguarding Minister Jess Phillips accused the government of being too slow to force firms to do so. Roxy, 23, told The Mirror: “I feel like I’m one of the lucky ones because I’m still alive.

“My mum reminds me often that that was very touch and go. I survived it, but lots of people don’t. And I think that’s even worse when there’s this technology out there that could be protecting them.

“It’s so easy to debate about whether or not these things should be put in place. And then you forget that kids are in their bedroom thinking their life is over.”

Roxy’s ordeal started when a 17-year-old boy at her school started showing an interest in her, and soon began pressuring her to send intimate pictures of herself. When she refused, he threatened to tell everyone at school that she was frigid and said no one would want to talk to her.

But in a sickening betrayal, when Roxy did send an image it was shared with other teenagers. Recounting the impact it had on her, she said: “I started self-harming because I really believed that I needed to be punished more, that I had done this terrible, terrible thing.

“And then I completely stopped sleeping, started hearing voices, and was eventually hospitalised, with a psychotic episode, and spent several months on suicide watch.”

It took years to realise she was not alone, and anxious to help others she and her mum Gay penned a moving biography, When You Lose It, describing Roxy’s experience. In the months that followed she was inundated with messages from others who had been through the same thing but had nowhere to turn.

“It’s so normal to be asked for photos by either peers or people who are older, or people you don’t know. It’s so normal and there’s so much pressure to do it if you want someone to like you. It’s awful.”

She said children as young as 11 and 12 had told her they had received and been asked for explicit pictures. Ministers are weighing up legislation to force companies like Google and Apple to roll out AI technology preventing phones from sending or receiving nude images.

This could be accompanied by criminal sanctions for bosses who fail to comply. It comes as experts warn a lack of safeguards is a gift to predators. The National Crime Agency found 90% of child abuse material includes images made by the victim, after grooming and coercion.

Roxy said: “What I really needed was for someone to sit me down and tell me over and over again until I believed it that this was not my fault and it was not me who should feel ashamed.

“But no one said that. And so I felt this deep, deep shame that kept me in this isolated bubble for the rest of my teenage years.”

Rhiannon-Faye McDonald, a survivor of technology-assisted child sexual abuse from the age of 13, told The Mirror: “The responsibility for preventing abuse must sit first and foremost with the adults, organisations and technology companies that design, build and operate these environments.

“We understand this principle in almost every other area of child safety. We do not ask children whether cars should have seatbelts.”

Rhiannon-Faye, director of services at the Marie Collins Foundation – which supports young people who have experienced online sexual abuse – added: “Offenders exploit weaknesses in systems that were not designed with child safety at their core.

“If choices have helped create these risks, different choices can help reduce them.”

Pressure is mounting on the Government to act. In a powerful resignation letter in May, former Home Office minister Ms Phillips said: “Over a year ago I presented solutions, long worked on by brilliant civil servants that would end the ability for children in the UK to take naked images of themselves.

“91% of online child sex abuse is self-generated by children groomed, tricked and exploited in to abuse. The technology exists to stop children being able to take naked images of themselves.

“We could make this possible on every phone and device in the country. We could stop this abuse. It has taken me a year to get you to agree to even threaten to legislate in this space.

“Not legislate, just threaten. This is the definition of incremental change. Nothing bold about it.”

For mental health support, call the Samaritans for free on 116 123, email them at [email protected], or visit samaritans.org.