A SCOTS teacher was left sickened when her daughter was asked to send a topless picture to "verify her age" after playing a children's dress up doll app.

Nicola McGarry, 41, has strict parental controls on ten-year-old Cahla's devices and regularly warns her about the dangers of talking to strangers online.

Nicola McGarry was sickened when daughter Cahla was targeted online Credit: Nicola McGarry

Schoolgirl Cahla regularly plays Gacha Life, a Japanese anime app for children to create their own characters, style their outfits and go on fantasy adventures.

The app is recommended for children aged nine and over due to infrequent and mild cartoon or fantasy violence.

But Nicola, from Prestwick, Ayrshire was satisfied it was safe.

She said: "I am a secondary school teacher so I am aware of the risks but you never think it is going to happen to your daughter.

A creep asked Cahla, 10, to send a topless picture to verify her age Credit: Nicola McGarry

"I am trying to raise awareness to stop this happening to someone else's child."

Cahla was targeted on Monday night after joining an Amino - communities, chat, forums, and groups app - dedicated to Gacha Life.

A creep, posing as an amino worker called Mandy, claimed a topless picture was needed to verify the youngster was a girl under the age of 14.

The message read: "Welcome to this amino. My name is Mandy and I work with amino.

The sicko, posing as an amino employee, said Cahla would be banned if she didn't send the picture Credit: Nicola McGarry

"So if you didn’t know. This is a safe space for young girls.

"We require users to be 14 and younger. if you fit these requirements, you can be here."

This is where the message took a dark and sordid turn.

Cahla was even threatened with a permanent ban from the fake employee if she didn't send the seedy snap.

It happened when the Ayrshire schoolgirl was playing Gacha Life Credit: Gacha Life

Savvy Cahla didn't reply to the online message, and immediately showed it to her mum.

Nicola, a secondary teacher, told the Scottish Sun Online: "It's been drummed into Cahla to be wary of things like this.

"She came straight through with it and I contacted the administrators.

"They're getting the police involved but because it's an American site it's all happening over there.

"I'm just worried some kids might fall for it, especially if they're threatened with a ban."

Top tips for parents from the UK Safer Internet Centre British online safety charity Childnet has some tips for parents to help young people stay safe online. 1. Stay engaged and have regular conversations Show an interest in the games your children are playing. This could be through having a conversation about what they like to play or could be through watching them play the game. You could even have a go at playing the games yourself! If children know you have an interest in the game, they may feel more comfortable talking to you about it or coming to you for help if they need it. 2. Help them understand the importance of personal information Check that your child understands:

- the importance of keeping their personal information safe

- that the should speak to an adult straight away if the chat goes from being about the game to meeting up offline, personal information or sending images. 3. Set rules around spending money in games Have a conversation with your child to make sure they realise that is possible to spend real money on the game. Make promises that work for your family; perhaps your child will have to ask you for permission before they make an in-game purchase. 4. Make use of the safety features available Block and report :

Make sure your child knows how to find and use the report and block functions.

: Make sure your child knows how to find and use the report and block functions. Safety settings:

Set up the parental controls that are right for your family.

Set up the parental controls that are right for your family. Settings for under 13s:

There are additional safety features for under-13s , so it’s worth checking your child’s account is registered with the correct age. Players under the age of 13 have a <13 symbol next to their username on the game at all times, however this is not displayed to other players. 5. Encourage them to tell you about concerns Remind your child that they should come to you if they ever see something inappropriate, mean comments or if anything worries them within the game. Read their full advice here.

A spokesperson for Amino said: "Keeping Amino safe is our top priority. We have zero-tolerance for any type of inappropriate contact with minors.

"Our team works 24/7 across seven supported languages to remove content and users in violation of our policies.

"We automatically remove nude imagery in order to prevent inappropriate content from being sent or received here, and we deploy the most advanced technologies available to assist with the enforcement of these rules.

"While we are unable to provide any information about this particular case, we report all incidents of child sexual exploitation to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), and we fully cooperate with law enforcement agencies if we receive requests for information. We are absolutely dedicated to maintaining the trust and safety of the Amino platform.

We told previously how YouTube is awash with explicit hardcore sex videos made using the children's game Roblox.

The revelation came last year after a mum shared her outrage after finding her seven-year-old daughter's Roblox character being "gang raped" in the game.

Roblox is aimed at children, and riffs on Minecraft by letting players create their own mini-games and virtual worlds.

But pervy players have exploited Roblox's freedom, using it to create twisted fantasy worlds where they live out sex games.

A search for "Roblox sex" games on YouTube pulls up over a million results, with hundreds of top-listed videos featuring XXX scenes.

Mum describes horror as daughter's Roblox character is sexually assaulted

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