A PREGNANT mum-of-one has told how she fears for her children's safety a decade after she was groomed online.
Kaat Bishop, 23, was stripped naked by a pal in front of a stranger on anonymous chat website Omegle aged 12.
The service was a video chat room which paired random users from all over the world, roulette-style, for real-time, one-on-one communication done over text or video calls.
And it's only a decade later, weeks after Omegle was shut down by a woman who sued the site for its part in her own abuse, that Kaat has come forward to speak out about what she went through.
Sun Online has launched a series probing the depravity carried out on the site by older predators targeting the site's young users.
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Kaat, one of a number of victims Sun Online has spoken to, didn't understand what was happening at the time, and froze as her friend carried out an older man's depraved instructions.
'IT HAS TO STOP'
She told Sun Online: "I don't want this to keep happening to more teenagers. I wasn't aware of the dangers and didn't know what to do when it happened to me."
Nottingham-based Kaat told how she was introduced to the chat site by a friend who told her it would be funny seeing who they could find on there.
The website allowed strangers from across the world to enter into video conversations without the need to register.
Kaat said the friends quickly matched with, and started talking to, a man on the website.
She added: "My friend started to strip me down to almost naked. It happened really quickly and was really weird. She was doing everything, I just froze. I didn't know what to do.
"She was doing everything he asked. He wanted us to kiss and perform explicit sex acts on each other. I refused and didn't know what to do other than stand there."
My friend started to strip me down to almost naked. It happened really quickly and was really weird. She was doing everything, I just froze. I didn't know what to do
Kaat Bishop,
After 20 minutes the man complained they weren't doing what he wanted and disconnected, but Kaat was left shocked by what had happened.
She added: "He got annoyed, said it wasn't what he wanted and ended the call."
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But Kaat's torment wasn't over, as her friend suggested they keep flicking through to chat to other users.
"It was so sexually orientated. I'd never experienced a website like that. I'd thought it was supposed to be a funny thing but it was absolutely crazy."
Kaat never wanted to visit the website again, but says her friend constantly pressured her to use it.
"I was vulnerable at that age," she said. "My friend was only 14 at the time. I think she was being groomed herself but we never spoke about it."
Her friend introduced Kaat to more explicit chat sites, including one called Chaturbate, which features free adult webcams and live sex.
Users are supposed to be over 18.
"She was so sexually aware." Kaat said. "It's crazy to look back at how young I was when I was exposed to this. She wouldn't have realised it was a bad thing.
"She thought it was cool and edgy. I saw explicit pictures and men were constantly trying to meet up with us.
"We said we were 18 to access the website but people were trying to get personal information from us."
MUM'S TERROR
Now, Kaat has a nine-year-old daughter and is pregnant with her second child.
She said: "My daughter's never been exposed to anything like this but I constantly have to keep an eye out for it.
"I do know I won't be putting pictures of my baby online. You never know who might see them and anything could happen. I'm terrified."
The absence of an age limit on Omegle meant the website became a breeding ground for sexual predators, according to Rani Govener, NSPCC's child safety online policy worker.
She said: "Now Omegle has shut down, we're keeping an eye on new sites that try to replicate Omegle's pattern and set up without proper protections in place.
"They were lacking before and put children at risk."
She said abusers can still be found across a range of social media platforms - including Meta-owned Instagram, Snapchat and an app nicknamed 'Tinder for Children', Yubo.
"We look at key platforms children are using that are unsafe by design.
"That might be adults contacting children, making lots of accounts, and grooming going undetected.
"The burden had been on children to recognise and report their own abuse, but they're the last ones to realise they’re being groomed."
Mum-of-three Joanna Connor, 38, couldn't believe it when her step-daughter showed her Omegle in 2019.
She said: "My daughter said she's spoken to nice people on there and that it was funny.
"But I went on myself and 90 per cent of people were looking for sex with underage girls.
"I was horrified. I pretended I was 15 and a man asked me to masturbate online. I immediately had a go at him and he disconnected. They didn't care I was underage.
"Sex isn't taboo in our house, we talk about it. But a lot of her friends were naïve. It's terrifying.
"It was a breeding pit for online coercion and even thought Omegle was shut down, there are more like it."
WHY IT HAPPENS
Victoria Green, chief executive of the Marie Collins Foundation, said children's natural curiosity draws them into chatting with strangers online.
She said: "Perpetrators are deliberately targeting young people and taking advantage of their natural curiosity.
"Teenagers have a biological imperative to take risks. It's natural. Or sometimes a teenager might be lonely and looking for connection.
"Whether they're vulnerable because of their age or low self-esteem, a perpetrator will find it out and utilise it. It can be very scary."
Ms Green said online grooming often takes the same shape.
"It's identification of a young person, honing in on a vulnerability and developing this," she added.
"If the vulnerability is loneliness they'll escalate this. They'll cut them off from their support network, so they're the only supportive figure in their lives.
"They use that position to receive intimate images and then use those to blackmail the child into meeting them.
"Then there will be further abuse, more involved images, maybe films. We have had young people lured with blackmail into filming themselves using objects."
And it's not just women who are targeted, young men are also at risk.
She added: "There's sextortion where young men are encouraged to send nudes and then blackmailed into handing over cash payments.
"You've also got LGBT+ youths who don't feel like they can be themselves at home or school.
"Society's messaging to young men is different, and puts them at risk. A lot don't come forward, they're suffering in silence."
WHO'S RESPONSIBLE?
The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) said 190,526 children were victims of self-generated child sex images between January and August last year.
Of those, 923 were boys and 189,603 were girls.
Each report is one webpage IWF has confirmed contains self-generated child sex abuse content, and taken action to remove.
Each individual webpage could contain up to thousands of images.
The stark figures come as the Online Safety Act 2023 came into law on October 26.
The act made technology companies more accountable for illegal and harmful content seen online.
But Ms Green says companies like Facebook's owner Meta aren't doing enough to stop this kind of abuse.
Ms Green added: "Meta has been giving perpetrators a place to hide without detection.
"It wants to bring in end-to-end encryption on its content. It'll take away the ability to scan platforms for child abuse imagery.
"Meta currently reports hundreds of thousands of images to the authorities. With end-to-end encryption this will stop."
Meta has said the changes will support its users right to privacy.
HORROR ABUSE
But Ms Green adds victims of child sexual abuse images have a right to privacy too, and shouldn't have to live with the fear of those images being shared.
"It's a life sentence for survivors," she added. "They go through life not knowing if their neighbour, co-worker, father-in-law has seen these photographs or videos of them when they were a teenager.
"Every time that image is shared that child is re-abused. It has to stop."
Omegle closed for good this year as part of an out-of-court settlement brought on by abuse survivor Alice, known as A.M. in court documents.
She'd met Ryan Fordyce a decade ago on Omegle, and he went on to enact three years of horrific abuse.
After he coerced her into sending intimate images, Fordyce convinced her she was complicit in making and sharing child sex abuse material, and could be jailed.
She told the BBC: "I spent a huge chunk of my childhood at his beck and call. Every day being at the will of someone else who had the worst of intentions for children."
It was only three years later, when he grew bored and stopped messaging, that she was freed from his grip.
After a police probe in 2018, some 220 images of Alice, aged between 11 and 14, were found on his computer.
He was sentenced in December 2021 to eight years in prison.
And Alice went on to sue Omegle for its part in her abuse, going on to accept an undisclosed amount.
She had hopes to be awarded £15.6million in compensation had the case made it to court.
If something as simple as meeting random new people is forbidden, what’s next?
Leif K-Brooks
Now Omegle.com features only a message from its creator, Leif K-Brooks.
He wrote: "I thank A.M. for opening my eyes to the human cost of Omegle.
"I’ve done my best to weather the attacks, with the interests of Omegle’s users – and the broader principle – in mind.
"If something as simple as meeting random new people is forbidden, what’s next? That is far and away removed from anything that could be considered a reasonable compromise of the principle I outlined."
A Meta spokesman said: "The overwhelming majority of Brits already rely on apps that use encryption to keep them safe from hackers, fraudsters, and criminals.
"We don’t think people want us reading their private messages so have spent the last five years developing robust safety measures to prevent, detect and combat abuse while maintaining online security.
"We recently published an updated report setting out these measures, such as restricting people over 19 from messaging teens who don’t follow them and using technology to identify and take action against malicious behaviour.
"As we roll out end-to-end encryption, we expect to continue providing more reports to law enforcement than our peers due to our industry leading work on keeping people safe.”
A Government spokesman said: "Under the Online Safety Act, social media services like Omegle will be subject to ground-breaking new duties to stop illegal content being shared on their sites and to keep children safe.
"Companies will be required to take proactive action in tackling online child sexual abuse and risk facing fines that could reach billions of pounds if they do not comply."
Sun Online has contacted Chaturbate for comment.
