Family and Friends Forum

And this sort of thing is the exact reason this needs to be a closed forum

Completely agree this should be a closed forum. Especially how sensitive this subject is and discussions around probation/safeguarding/social services/police/CPS are discussed daily xx

Is there a reason why it is not a closed forum? We all need to feel safe here.

That's just so unfair, as if you've not had enough to deal with! If your ex partner is reading this, SHAME ON YOU!!! How DARE you take away your ex partners support network on top of everything else. Get off this forum RIGHT NOW!

And yes, for this very reason, this needs to be a closed forum

I'm so sorry you've had your safety net taken away. It is for that very reason I rarely post. There are so many things that I'd like to ask & discuss, but call me paranoid, I've always thought the police must read this forum. What if someone's 'person' could possibly be identified & I am scared I may say/ ask something incriminating for my son.

Dear Forum Users,

We are incredibly sorry to hear that Secretsquirrel has experienced a breach of their privacy and felt the need to leave the forum as a result. We want to acknowledge how upsetting and distressing this must be for them, and those who have read and responded to their post.

This forum was created to be a safe and supportive place for people navigating the incredibly difficult journey of having someone close to them being arrested, cautioned, or convicted for internet offences involving children. It is important that our users know that we do not support or condone anyone attempting to use this forum to gather information and identify individual users. We know how isolating and overwhelming this experience can be, and we are deeply committed to maintaining a space where people can find understanding, connection, and support.

We’ve seen some questions about why the forum is open to the public. We want to share some information about why this decision has been made:

The forum is open because we know from our research that this is the best and most effective way of reaching as many people as possible. We know that many people in this situation are not yet ready or comfortable to create an account or post. They may be in shock, fearful of judgment, or simply not ready to share. By keeping the forum open, we ensure that those individuals can still access the support, insights, and shared experiences of others—often at a time when they need it most, without having to commit to becoming a registered user.

That said, we completely understand the concerns about privacy and safety. We want to reassure everyone that:

- We are fully committed to supporting all users and safeguarding the integrity of this space.
- We strongly encourage everyone to avoid sharing any identifying details in public posts.
- If you do wish to share more personal or specific information, please consider using direct messaging where it is safer and more private.

We are always listening and learning from your feedback. If you have further thoughts or suggestions on how we can improve the safety and supportiveness of the forum, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us directly via forum@lucyfaithfull.org.uk

Kind regards,

The Forum Team

Lucy from Stop It Now – thank you for taking the time to reply to this, whilst I appreciate what you are saying about an open forum being the best way to support and encourage participation from new users and in many ways I agree with this however we will have to agree to disagree on the following statment;

“It is important that our users know that we do not support or condone anyone attempting to use this forum to gather information and identify individual users. We know how isolating and overwhelming this experience can be, and we are deeply committed to maintaining a space where people can find understanding, connection, and support.”

Whilst you may not condone these actions the forum as it stands does little to prevent this, it takes just three clicks to access the family and friends forum from your home page, one click if you use the correct search term in a search engine. Your service is one that accused and convicted individuals not only have access to but are actively signposted to on arrest, it would take no time at all for these inderviduals to find this forum. Its akin to setting up a domestic violence support forum and then inviting the abusers in.

I wonder if there is a way to create a secondary forum that is private? More people might share then, and be able to receive much needed direct support.

I think stopitnow are very clear when you sign up about not posting identifying details. It is extremely unfortunate that someone's partner has accessed the forum and identified them and for me it's a good reminder to be careful about what I include in posts

There are many people viewing the forum for support who will never make an account for whatever reason and I think it would be wrong to close it and exclude all those people. I don't think I would have signed up to a closed forum without reading it and understanding it first, and it's been such a support to me for the past few years.

There are other closed forums out there but you can't know who is running them or whether your information is safe, whereas stopitnow are a proper charity with safeguarding policies and procedures in place

Whilst I agree that stop it now do make it clear about not posting identifiable info, it is not just information like our name, age or location which make us identifiable (which the moderators will comment on and ask you to remove) it is our situations.

The whole point of the forum is to provide support via lived experience, that's impossible to do without sharing our stories with each other, both to give context to our questions and to our answers. This is what makes us identifiable because our story is also our person's story.

Without the forum users posting their own experiences this would be a pretty quiet forum.

Also this is one case of an offender accessing the forum and identifying a poster that we know about, how many more have occurred without the poster becoming aware of it. I'm fairly sure that if my partner accessed the forum, if he hasn't already then he would fairly easily be able to work out who I am.

So sorry to see you go Squirrel.

I have been a frequent reader but only posted a couple of times, partly because of the same worry. The more I wrote about my own situation, the easier it would be for my person to notice that it sounded familiar. Or even to recognise the way that I write.

However I'm not sure what could be done about that. People other than friends and family could still easily make accounts to browse a closed forum - I don't see how that could help. And it's crucial that it stays anonymous (even from LFF), so I wouldn't want any ID verification.

At the risk of sounding glib, we wouldn't be here in the first place if our people could be trusted not to go where they shouldn't on the internet, so we have to assume that at least some of them would go to the effort of registering for a closed forum.

I'm really sorry it's happened. Maybe we take this as a reminder to us all to think carefully which details to reveal if we are concerned about being identified by someone who knows us, and maybe even which insignificant ones to change. Whilst raging that it is yet another way in which we are having to pay the price and face the consequences of someone else's actions.