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

A mother whose 14-year-old daughter was groomed into sending sexually explicit images of herself by a man she met on Roblox said the online gaming platform was not doing enough to protect children.

Carlo Tritta tricked the teenager into believing they were in a loving relationship after they first came into contact in September 2024 when he was aged 18.

The victim's mother, from Greater Manchester, said she was "shocked, bewildered and really angry" when she discovered her daughter had initially been targeted by Tritta on Roblox.

A spokesperson for Roblox said it was "saddened to hear of this troubling case" and it was "committed to building safeguards designed to prevent that from happening".

Tritta, 19, from Eastleigh, Hampshire, was jailed for two years and four months when he appeared for sentencing at Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court.

He admitted making indecent images of a child, engaging in sexual communications with a child and causing a child aged 13-15 to watch/look at a sexual image.

Tritta also admitted two counts of intimidating a witness and criminal damage.

His abuse came to light after the victim's mother noticed a message on her daughter's phone that raised alarm bells that would unearth a horrifying reality.

"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 is one of the world's largest games platforms with about 40 million user-generated games and experiences.

"She'd started talking to this person on Roblox for so long, nothing sinister, chit chat," said the victim's mother, who cannot be named to protect the identity of her daughter.

Tritta encouraged the victim to move their communication to other messaging services where he professed his love for her, sending takeaways and a secret phone to her home.

But the messages became a lot more disturbing.

"I was just shocked, bewildered, really angry," she said.

"Not with my daughter because I had to keep saying to her 'I'm not angry with you' but I couldn't speak.

"I don't think your brain can take in what you're seeing and obviously that's your child."

She said her daughter had been left feeling suicidal and was struggling to sleep.

"This was because she was stuck in this situation where he had passwords for all her social media," said the victim's mother.

"He knew who she got the bus home with, he knew who her friends were.

"He knew what activities she did outside of school.

"So he controlled everything she was doing and who was speaking to her online and things like that.

"She was trapped in something that she didn't think she could get out of."

Tritta was arrested before being released on police bail, with strict conditions not to contact the victim or visit her home.

But he broke his bail conditions and travelled 200 miles (322km) from Hampshire to the victim's house, broke her doorbell camera and let himself inside.

"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," said the victim's mother.

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.

The victim's mother said she wanted to warn other parents about the dangers of their children using the gaming 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.

"I think a lot of social media needs to do more to protect young children."

A Roblox spokesperson said: "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 and we are committed to building safeguards designed to prevent that from happening.

"Roblox requires all users to go through age checks in order to communicate on our platform, with the system designed to limit communications 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 personal information."

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