[mr_wonderful]

From this article, the mother knew nothing of the "relationship" until her daughter had gone missing.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... -life.html

So what the mother said or did beforehand is not a major factor. Unless a lot of mothers tell their daughters that they aren't good enough for good looking guys (just in case a predatory rapist and murderer crosses their path posing as one).

[Mailydail]

I can't understand how these things happen. How utterly stupid do you have to be. Both the mother and the daughter are fools.

[Fozzy]

Mailydail:

Both the mother and the daughter are fools.

How do you make that out? The mother let her 17 year old daughter go for a sleepover with a friend, which frankly is something that parents do the world over without thinking twice about it. And in the circumstances the present tense sadly isn't appropriate for describing the daughter.

[Mailydail]

Fozzy, no good is going to come of us arguing this out. There has been enough in the media on the dangers of the internet. She was
not a little girl and should have known better. She was grossly foolish and died as a result. Yes, it is sad and she certainly didn't deserve it. But I just can't sympathise with morons who don't take heed of warnings, ignore common sense and go about blithely saying "la la it won't happen to me!"

What saddens me more is that there will lots more idiot victims like her.

[boopadoop]

As a fellow hater of the Daily Mail, I have been a long time lurker on this site. However, although I've caved in and had to comment on the odd hateful article at the Mail online, I've never been compelled to post *here* (mainly because I concur with most things said)...until now.
Mailydail, your dismissive, heartless comments are harsh in the extreme.
While I accept that there were probably failings on the part of Ashleigh's mother, inadequent parenting is not always the fault of the parent. And to label Ashleigh an 'idiot victim' is to completely ignore the fact that a lot of people who aren't perhaps as educated as yourself, simply DON'T know about or understand the perils of the internet. From what I gather, she was quite a lonely and therefore vulnerable young girl who was flattered by the attentions of a boy she thought fancied her.
A lot of people don't have the benefit of your intellect and aren't as internet savvy as the people who, say, post on here and are therefore susceptible to exploitation. Poor Ashleigh paid the highest possible price.
Your lack of sympathy shows a lack of compassion and humanity I am shocked to see on a normally such a reasoned and - in the most part - decent forum like this. It's actually more suited to a hardened Mail reader. Shame.

[culfy]

Fozzy, no good is going to come of us arguing this out. There has been enough in the media on the dangers of the internet. She was
not a little girl and should have known better. She was grossly foolish and died as a result. Yes, it is sad and she certainly didn't deserve it. But I just can't sympathise with morons who don't take heed of warnings, ignore common sense and go about blithely saying "la la it won't happen to me!"

What saddens me more is that there will lots more idiot victims like her.

And let's face it, she was never going to discover a cure for cancer or do missionary work in Africa eh?

[Mailydail]

What are you getting so angry about?? She was silly and she paid for it with her life. It's sad but it's just the way it is.

And Culfy: She wasn't going to do either of those things. The vast vast majority of people aren't going to do either of those things.

[Killer Whale]

To be fair to Culfy, that was a reference to Littlejohn's infamous column on why it didn't really matter that someone had murdered some prostitutes in Ipswich.

[Mailydail]

All I said was that some people die because they do something foolish. This girl died because she did something foolish. That's it.

[culfy]

No, she died because a sex offender killed her. I fail to see the difference between blaming the victim for taking a supposedly foolish course of action and blaming a rape victim because she wore a short skirt. That way Littlejohn mentality lies, hence my reference.

[moonshien]

All I said was that some people die because they do something foolish. This girl died because she did something foolish. That's it.

She died because someone murdered her.

Perhaps that was a little foolish of him, but he's rather more to blame than she was.

[bluebellnutter]

Someone who dies when trying to do some wiring and forgetting to turn the power off = foolish.

Someone who dies when crossing the road and not bothering to look = foolish.

Someone who dies while trying to see what would happen if they jumped into a combine harvester = foolish.

Someone who is murdered by a sex offender = nothing like the same sort of thing.

[tc-obo]

Of course, though, people at all times act entirely rationally, are never caught up in any emotion and are always capable of listening and being convinced by logical argument, so of course the girl was a fool and an idiot to let herself think that someone might actually fancy her rather than be a rapist murderer.

Yes, that's obvious. And remember - next time you introduce yourself to a stranger in a bar THEY MIGHT KILL YOU.

[Mailydail]

You're all deliberately ignoring the fact that she placed herself in the hands of a stranger she met on some chatroom. According to the article, she was aware of the dangers of getting too involved with strangers on the internet. Presumably she was also aware of the horror stories plastered all over the media and the warnings on the Facebook website. Yet still, she went alone to meet a complete stranger without telling anyone about it. The article said she was "well-liked" and had 400 friends she knew on Facebook, why didn't she take a group of them with her? Did she not have the smidgeon of common sense to ask this guy to appear on webcam? To talk to him on the phone or introduce him to her mother? To force him to prove his identity? To meet him during the day time in a public place? You can't "know" someone just by talking to them on a chatroom. You can adopt any persona you like on the internet. It can reveal very little about your personality. She probably thought she "loved" him or that he "understood her pain". Or she was on her way to meet a young man the spitting image of the Twilight vampire guy.

The mind boggles!! She was like a pig to the slaughter! She did a very foolish thing and she paid for it with her life. What's even more disturbing is that this girl was working to become a child minder. Good god. She'd have probably loaded a whole nursery full of children into the back of some bloke's unmarked van if he gave her a bag of mars bars first!

[liberalharpie]

You're all deliberately ignoring the fact that she placed herself in the hands of a stranger she met on some chatroom. According to the article, she was aware of the dangers of getting too involved with strangers on the internet. Presumably she was also aware of the horror stories plastered all over the media and the warnings on the Facebook website. Yet still, she went alone to meet a complete stranger without telling anyone about it. The article said she was "well-liked" and had 400 friends she knew on Facebook, why didn't she take a group of them with her? Did she not have the smidgeon of common sense to ask this guy to appear on webcam? To talk to him on the phone or introduce him to her mother? To force him to prove his identity? To meet him during the day time in a public place? You can't "know" someone just by talking to them on a chatroom. You can adopt any persona you like on the internet. It can reveal very little about your personality. She probably thought she "loved" him or that he "understood her pain". Or she was on her way to meet a young man the spitting image of the Twilight vampire guy.

The mind boggles!! She was like a pig to the slaughter! She did a very foolish thing and she paid for it with her life. What's even more disturbing is that this girl was working to become a child minder. Good god. She'd have probably loaded a whole nursery full of children into the back of some bloke's unmarked van if he gave her a bag of mars bars first!

So, basically you're saying she asked for it. I bet she wore a short skirt and had drank a few alcopops as well.

Good day to you, sir.