Game Over. Mark Wheeller

is Dead (still available on YouTube) shocked me into never messing with drugs. Shock tactics don’t work with everyone… but for many, they do. I am one of them.

      A drama teacher recently contacted me about Hard to Swallow. She said, before purchasing a set of scripts (which she felt were a crucial tool), she had to speak to her Child Protection Officer to get permission to use the script. My reply to her was:

      “Arguably, there are more child protection issues by avoiding these topics than there are by arming young people with the knowledge that comes from true stories such as these.”

      Had Lorin’s complaint about LD’s grooming behaviour been followed up properly, Breck would still be alive. As I indicated earlier, this resonates with an experience I had as a ten-year-old boy. I was interviewed about it on BBC1’s Panorama: Scandal in the Church of England, April 2019 alongside another boy at my school.

      The programme revealed (I wasn’t aware of it until then) that I would not have been abused (low level and once only fortunately, unlike my schoolfriend) had the authorities concerned (the church) followed up a complaint that had been made some months before. These situations leave a feeling of “something has to be done”.

      The play gives a clear idea of what effect it has had on Lorin, her family and Breck’s friends. Their passion to speak out about the situation they were hurled into emphasises how we should make every effort to tell/hear these stories and learn from them.

      I hope you will join me in using Game Over to help to convey the Breck Foundation’s message as far and wide as possible. I am excited to see how this play can both generate outstandingly imaginative drama and help to empower young people to make safer choices for themselves online.

      Mark Wheeller, 2020

      A Note from Lorin LaFave

      When I was introduced to Mark Wheeller and recommended that he write a verbatim play about my son Breck’s story, I was very keen to learn more about how this would work. I had founded a charity called the Breck Foundation in 2014 after poor fourteen-year-old Breck was groomed by an online predator who ran the server in his gaming group with friends from school. Sadly, after a year of spending time online together, he was lured to his death at the predator’s flat.

      Since then I have been delivering presentations to pupils at schools and speaking at training sessions and conferences about Child Sexual Exploitation and grooming, as well as campaigning for changes in laws, policies and policing, so the idea of having ‘help’ to share awareness and understanding of the signs of grooming and exploitation online really appealed to me. One of our most important ethos within the charity is to teach others to talk about issues they may be affected by with their family and friends, and to look out for each other. So, what better way to get young people talking about these issues than to allow them to reach and teach each other through the creative outlet of drama at school.

      Mark spent time with me, Breck’s triplet siblings, their dad, as well as some of his friends to get a realistic version of what was happening in Breck’s life at the time. Mark also used the predator’s voice through police recordings that had been obtained in the investigation, so this is truly a well-rounded view of the story and what was being said to the gamers during the year-long grooming process.

      Breck and all of his friends had of course sat through e-safety training sessions at school, but at the time these lessons were not delivered in a way that enabled the pupils to really listen, they felt patronised, and they weren’t given real-life examples, so they did not take in these important life lessons when presented just as ‘rules’. Teens think they know all and indeed do know so much, but important life experiences that account for so much they may not yet have, so we want Breck’s life, and sadly in his case, ‘death’ lessons to really resonate because everyone will have a friend or school colleague who may be engaging with strangers online. We try to emphasise that everyone online is a stranger, and that is not to say that they are all bad, but that online, we are not able to make an educated or safe decision whether they are genuine and safe or not. We teach to never meet up in a ‘private’ place when we have only met online.

      In Breck’s story and many others, a stranger online may infiltrate a young person’s life, befriend them, make them laugh, mentor them, encourage them, but then gradually isolate, change, manipulate and control them so that the person being groomed cannot see it themselves, which is why it is so important for young people to know these signs so that they can look out for each other online whether interacting on social media or on gaming platforms. Predators will find a shared interest to trick the young person into believing they are ‘real’ friends. Breck was a clever, confident and liked boy, the kind of teenager who never thought they could fall for something like this, and yet sadly he did. He adored gaming and computing, and this is how the predator built a relationship with him, through their shared interests.

      Whilst many teachers may be great at educating, young people are inundated with safety messages and reminders, so by using this hard-hitting play as a resource, with a true story of a real boy, they can better engage their pupils to be aware of the dangers they may face online, to teach them to recognise the signs of grooming and report these to a trusted adult, they will be better educated and this will empower them to look after others as well. They can then better communicate concerns, thereby keeping themselves and others safe from harm online and off as grooming happens in all forms, to girls and boys, and for various adverse outcomes, such as Child Sexual Exploitation, County Lines gang activity, radicalisation or any harmful outcome.

      Whilst predators can be any age, this predator was only eighteen years old, a teenager like the other boys, and they were not ‘afraid’ of other guys their age. Many people saw the changes in Breck’s personality, and I had reported to schools and police, but because Breck did not present himself as a ‘vulnerable’ child, no one took the warning signs of grooming seriously. We all have vulnerabilities and predators will prey on this. I did my best as a parent, but without the skills, knowledge and help, my efforts still failed, and that is every parent’s absolute worst nightmare.

      The work that I do now is to try to help others, so that no other child will go through what Breck did, this tragic loss of life of a chilled, innately good, productive human being with potential. My eyes tear up even now as I write this, as no matter how much time goes by, I still hugely miss my lovely son Breck, and nothing can bring him back.

      Use this play to teach in the engaging way it is written, with Lorin, me, who has been pulled to bits, and all the lovely characters who didn’t deserve to be a part of this tragedy, with the laughter that comes too. And I thank Mark for writing Game Over beautifully and Lindsay Wallace of Beaumont School in St Albans for obtaining the funding to make this happen and guiding our first showing with her amazing, talented and warm cast. They were attentive and conscientious as they wanted to honour the teenage boy in the best way they could, by ensuring the performances were to the best of their ability – what better way to learn than through enjoyment.

      Most young people today are living so much of their lives out online, so by embracing the lessons through performance, the messages will further resonate. Breck’s story offers an engaging platform for opening honest discussions about online behaviours.

      I hope you enjoy performing the play together and I hope you will remember my Breck for the awesome guy he was.

      Break a leg x

      Lorin LaFave (Breck’s Mom)

      June 2020

      Breck Bednar

       www.breckfoundation.org

      Introduction to Directing Game Over