Kungfoolss
07-20-2003, 12:15 AM
Focus: There is no safety Net
The nightmare is over for the family of Shevaun Pennington. But as internet technology advances, the problems for parents are only just beginning.
David Randall reports
20 July 2003
http://www.femail.co.uk/img/pix2/studebakerR150703_100x160.jpg
Marine: Toby Studamaker
In the kitchen of a modern three-bedroomed house near Wigan 10 days ago, a 12-year-old girl asked her parents if she could have her passport. Her mother asked why. The girl said it was so she could apply for a bus pass and the passport was duly handed over. Thus fell into place a vital part of the plans that Shevaun Pennington had been hatching with her secret friend.
He was American. She had met him on the internet months ago, and he had seemed to understand her. They would email each other for hours, and he had written her letters and phoned her at school. And he was coming to meet her and they were going to have a holiday and be with each other, and it would be just like all those great emails, only better. Only she knew, 'cos it was a secret. He was her secret friend, called Toby.
The friend had secrets, too. Big secrets. Like, Toby Studabaker had been accused of sexual assaults on two young girls. And thrown out of his father-in-law's house. And collected a £75,000 life insurance payout when his wife died of cancer. They were the kind of things that maybe you would not mention to your new girl. Especially if she was only 19 going on 12, and the day you were going to meet was drawing near. Not that Mr and Mrs Pennington had any idea about that.
The school holidays were coming and life seemed just as it always was, with Shevaun tapping away at the computer in the kitchen. She seemed popular at school, had lots of friends, but there she was, most nights, on the Net for hours and hours. Still, it was safer than being out on the streets, surely?
As Shevaun kept her secret, 4,000 miles away in the small town of Constantine, Michigan, her friend was getting ready. Just a couple of weeks out of the Marines, Toby had told his brother Leo that he had met an English college girl on the Net and now he was going over to see her. The day before he flew, he dropped in at the tae kwon do academy where he had learnt martial arts as a teen, gone on to earn a black belt, and become so friendly with his trainer, Cindy Anglemyer, that he babysat her children. He mentioned that he might be off to Europe.
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/story.jsp?story=425884
The nightmare is over for the family of Shevaun Pennington. But as internet technology advances, the problems for parents are only just beginning.
David Randall reports
20 July 2003
http://www.femail.co.uk/img/pix2/studebakerR150703_100x160.jpg
Marine: Toby Studamaker
In the kitchen of a modern three-bedroomed house near Wigan 10 days ago, a 12-year-old girl asked her parents if she could have her passport. Her mother asked why. The girl said it was so she could apply for a bus pass and the passport was duly handed over. Thus fell into place a vital part of the plans that Shevaun Pennington had been hatching with her secret friend.
He was American. She had met him on the internet months ago, and he had seemed to understand her. They would email each other for hours, and he had written her letters and phoned her at school. And he was coming to meet her and they were going to have a holiday and be with each other, and it would be just like all those great emails, only better. Only she knew, 'cos it was a secret. He was her secret friend, called Toby.
The friend had secrets, too. Big secrets. Like, Toby Studabaker had been accused of sexual assaults on two young girls. And thrown out of his father-in-law's house. And collected a £75,000 life insurance payout when his wife died of cancer. They were the kind of things that maybe you would not mention to your new girl. Especially if she was only 19 going on 12, and the day you were going to meet was drawing near. Not that Mr and Mrs Pennington had any idea about that.
The school holidays were coming and life seemed just as it always was, with Shevaun tapping away at the computer in the kitchen. She seemed popular at school, had lots of friends, but there she was, most nights, on the Net for hours and hours. Still, it was safer than being out on the streets, surely?
As Shevaun kept her secret, 4,000 miles away in the small town of Constantine, Michigan, her friend was getting ready. Just a couple of weeks out of the Marines, Toby had told his brother Leo that he had met an English college girl on the Net and now he was going over to see her. The day before he flew, he dropped in at the tae kwon do academy where he had learnt martial arts as a teen, gone on to earn a black belt, and become so friendly with his trainer, Cindy Anglemyer, that he babysat her children. He mentioned that he might be off to Europe.
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/story.jsp?story=425884
