Final Report - European Online Grooming Project

If they called themselves ‘sara14’ or ‘Jenny15’ then I’d get interested. (Norway participant, female victim
age 13-15)
- The second group was idealistic/romantic appraisal. In these cases, some online groomers would
describe looking for young people who seemed to fit their conception of somebody that would be
good in a relationship – almost as if the groomer was perusing an adult online dating site looking for
a potential partner:
The young person looked fun, fun to be around and with (UK participant, female victim age 13-15).
- The third aspect involved appraising the physical characteristics of the young person. Here some
online groomers talked about using photographs or other images of the young person to identify
whether they were physically developed enough (breasts and body shape) to warrant further
investigation and potential online contact.
The girls I was interested in, they had to look mature enough (UK participant, female victim age 13-15).
Ideally I looked for people age 14/15 as more physically developed and I saw younger people as too
young (UK participant, female victims age 13-15).
In chapter 5 of the report, the classification of online grooming types is to some extent defined by the
characteristics individual offenders targeted when they were appraising young people. In terms of a
theoretical explanation, it does seem sensible to suggest that online groomers who are acting in
accordance to such plans or behavioural scripts are adopting approach goals. That is, what Ward and
Hudson (1998) term approach-explicit sexual offenders (systematic planners with intact self-regulation).
However, it is important to note that not all online groomers in this sample went through a process of
scanning the online environment before making contact with young people. There were men who
described their online behaviour as far less subtle and sophisticated with little or no attempt being made
to mask an explicit desire for sexual contact with young people. In fact, it is questionable whether it is
appropriate to call such behaviour as ‘online grooming’, as no real victim socialisation takes place in
these cases. As with those who scanned online, a classification and explanation for offenders that made
random almost instant contact with young people online is described in chapter 5.
Identity
Digital deception (the phenomena of lying online) has received significant attention in the mainstream media
and academic literature (Hancock, Curry, Goorha & Woodworth, 2008). Given the propensity of the general
public to be more dishonest online than in face to face communication (Zimbler & Feldman, 2011), it is
perhaps unsurprising that the online groomers’ talked about the extent their identity was altered for the
offending process.
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