George Nicolaou lost 15-year-old son Christoforos three years ago. He believes he ‘would have been with us today’ if online safeguarding had been in place at the time
A grieving dad whose son died aged 15 after receiving horrific messages from predators has hit back at Nigel Farage over a pledge to axe new online safety laws.
George Nicolaou lost Christoforos three years ago and believes he “would have been with us today” if safeguarding had been in place at the time. The teenager was subject to abuse in an online forum after clicking on a pop-up link to a private chat while he was playing video games. George said the people who his son spoke to “traumatised him for 50 days” and threatened to kill his family unless he completed challenges.
He was found unconscious at his family home in Cheshunt, Herts, in March 2022. George told The Mirror: “I always say our son didn’t harm himself, he didn’t actually give up his life on his own accord, he was ordered to complete the challenges, and by which I say, and I will always say Christopher was murdered. He did not kill himself.” It came as George confronted Mr Farage during a call-in on LBC over the Online Safety Act.
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Under the Online Safety Act, which Reform UK has pledged to axe if the party wins power, tech companies have been ordered to bring in age verification tools, tame toxic algorithms and remove harmful content.
George told The Mirror: “I’m not sure if Nigel Farage has any of his own kids, but I’m a grieving father along with my wife and along with 19 other parents we are in a group together with who have lost our children through various ways through social media. In a way I’m fortunate enough I was able to find the data that my child was involved in.”
He added: “They made him do so many various, traumatising and scary things. Had this safeguarding been in place then, then I’m pretty sure that Christopher and all the other children would have been with us today. Unfortunately children’s minds are like sponges and they absorb anything that they come across.”
The dad said: “I always say our son didn’t harm himself, he didn’t actually give up his life on his own accord, he was ordered to complete the challenges, and by which I say, and I will always say Christopher was murdered. He did not kill himself.”
He went on: “Going to Nigel Farage’s story of ‘oh I don’t really want all of this safeguarding, I don’t like it because it reduces the freedom of speech’ – you’re confusing two things.
“What Nigel Farage is doing is confusing two things. He’s saying freedom of speech is one thing, which I totally agree, fine. But when you’re dealing with child’s lives, who are innocent, and are sponges and absorb anything that comes their way, freedom of speech should not be allowed in that sense.”
Parents George and Areti Nicolaou set up the Christoforos Charity Foundation (CCF) after the tragic loss of their son to promote online safety. It also seeks to encourage children and young adults to engage in fun activities outside social media and “start making real connections again”.
George told The Mirror: “My entire life – I’ve given up four businesses – so I can run a charity, which is a non-profit organisation. We’re a committee of 10 now… and we’re just trying to do everything, absolutely everything possible to try and put things right.
“Listen we can’t save the world but with people like Nigel Farage in our way and trying to prevent such a fantastic thing about to happen, that’s ridiculous.”
George’s comments to The Mirror came after he quizzed Mr Farage during a call-in on LBC. He told the Reform UK chief “countless more children” would be left vulnerable if the Online Safety Act is repealed. Dad George asked: “Do you acknowledge this law is not theoretical and a matter of a life and death for families like mine?”
Mr Farage, who described the tragedy as “awful”, replied: “If age verification of itself was able to prevent incidents and tragedies like this I would George, 100%, support it. But the problem is it doesn’t because of the VPN [Virtual Private Network] route… that is the problem.
“There has to be a tech answer around this, I don’t know what it is, certainly the government doesn’t know what it is. But there has to be a tech answer of some kind.”
The Reform UK chief added: “George, my objection is that what you’re describing here is exactly what the legislation the Conservatives put in place was designed to do, but then they expanded it to a whole load of other areas. George, we do need to find a solution but I’m sorry to say this is not it.” Mr Farage went on: “Here’s the real danger if you go through a VPN you can then access content on what’s called the dark web which is even worse than what you can find online now.”
This week Tech Secretary Peter Kyle said repealing the laws would put Mr Farage on the side of “people out there who are extreme pornographers peddling hate, peddling violence”. The Cabinet minister said on Tuesday: “Make no mistake about it, if people like Jimmy Savile were alive today, he’d be perpetrating his crimes online. And Nigel Farage is saying that he’s on their side.”
Responding to the remarks on LBC, the Reform UK leader said the comments were “absolutely appalling”.
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