My daughter, 14, was groomed after meeting man on Roblox

A mother from Greater Manchester has spoken out after her 14-year-old daughter was groomed by a man she met on Roblox, resulting in the teenager sharing explicit content. Carlo Tritta, 19, from Eastleigh, Hampshire, manipulated the teenager into believing they were in a romantic relationship after their initial contact in September 2024 when Tritta was 18.

Online grooming led to emotional distress

The mother, from Greater Manchester, expressed being “shocked, bewildered, and really angry” upon finding her daughter had been targeted by Tritta on the platform. She described how the abuse began with innocent chats that gradually turned sinister, before the messages became increasingly disturbing. “She’d started talking to this person on Roblox for so long, nothing sinister, chit chat,” she said, highlighting the gradual shift in the relationship.

“I said ‘Oh, who’s that?’ and she was crying and saying ‘Please don’t look at my phone, please don’t look at my phone’. I just knew then that’s not her and I needed to see what was on this phone. That’s where it all started to unravel. There were a lot of sexual images, videos, really bad ones.”

Roblox’s safeguards under scrutiny

Roblox is one of the world’s largest gaming platforms with about 40 million user-generated games and experiences. A spokesperson for the platform said it was “saddened to hear of this troubling case” and “committed to building safeguards designed to prevent that from happening.” However, the mother argued that the system wasn’t sufficient, noting how Tritta used passwords to control her daughter’s online interactions and activities.

Abuse escalated with physical intrusion

Tritta was jailed for two years and four months after appearing at Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court. He admitted to creating indecent images of a child, exchanging sexual messages, and exposing a 13-15-year-old to explicit content. Additionally, he faced two counts of intimidating a witness and criminal damage. The mother revealed how Tritta breached his bail conditions by traveling 200 miles from Hampshire to the victim’s home, breaking her doorbell camera and entering without permission.

“He was just at my kitchen door talking about nightmares while me and my daughter were just sat in the living room writing Christmas cards and watching Christmas TV,” the mother recounted. “He also sent the victim two cards, asking her not to support the prosecution as well as reporting her family to the police and social services.”

Mother urges vigilance on gaming platforms

The mother emphasized the need to alert other parents to the risks associated with their children’s use of the platform. “It’s dangerous – it needs to be watched,” she said. “It’s a kids’ game and adults are getting on there to groom children. So they need to do something about it. It should just be for kids. Not for adults to go on to groom.”

“With more than 144 million daily active users on Roblox, cases of harm are rare, but we know any incident of harm is one too many,” the spokesperson added. “Roblox requires all users to go through age checks to communicate on our platform, with the system designed to limit interactions to people of similar ages and those they already know. Our policies firmly prohibit any kind of child exploitation and we have extensive safety systems in place to help prevent user-to-user image sharing, limit chat for younger users, and block the sharing of explicit content.”