Esme Smith: Ask.fm messages reveal schoolgirl may have been bullied

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/sep/22/esme-smith-ask-fm-messages

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Fears for the safety of a 14-year-old girl who has been missing for 10 days have grown after it was emerged that she may have been interacting with strangers on Ask.fm, the website at the centre of controversy over cyberbullying.

The police and family of Esme Smith, who is the daughter of a Nato commander and was last seen on 12 September by friends after school in her hometown of Farnham, Surrey, made renewed calls for her to get in touch as the search focused on the possibility that she is in London.

She told her friends she was going to Woking, 16 miles away, and would then go to a party. Instead, she changed out of her school uniform and caught a train from Aldershot just after 4pm.

She arrived at London Waterloo about an hour later, where CCTV footage has shown her wearing a white flowery dress and denim jacket and carrying a black school bag, as well as a black floral bag with chain straps.

Her father, Mark Smith, who works at Nato's joint warfare centre in Stavanger, Norway, said the family were clueless as to her whereabouts and were "worried sick".

He told the Daily Mail: "She's just gone to ground. We're baffled. We are working very closely with the police and doing everything through them. They are doing a great job."

Social media is being employed to assist the search, with the hashtag #FindEsme being used on Twitter by those including the Surrey police, which posted another photograph of her.

More than 5,000 Facebook users have also "liked" a page called Find Esme Smith, which has been set up to raise awareness of her disappearance.

Meanwhile, it has emerged that Esme may have been interacting with other users of Ask.fm, a social networking site with 60 million users, around half of whom are under 18. Amid an outcry, it last month unveiled changes aimed at making it safer after recent online bullying cases including the death of Hannah Smith, 14, who is believed to have killed herself at home in Leicestershire after she was bullied on the site.

A user going under Esme's name and appearing to match her description last year last year left messages on the site about being bullied at school in the past and was also the target of abusive messages on the site. The user also posted messages about casual sex in conversations with other, anonymous users.

Detective Superintendent Jon Savell, head of Surrey police's public protection unit, said on Saturday that a dedicated team of detectives is working on the case and following up on a number of calls from people who believe that they may have seen Esme.

Esme is white, 5ft 3in and of slim to medium build, with shoulder-length brown hair that may be tied in a bun. She has brown eyes, a tanned complexion and wears size six shoes.

Anyone with information is asked to call Surrey police on 101, or the independent charity Missing People can be contacted anonymously on 116 000.

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