A man traveled to the UK from Germany with the intention of having sex with a 13-year-old girl he met through Roblox.
Michael Shablinger, 36, spent months grooming the 13-year-old victim – who cannot be identified for legal reasons – after finding her on the video game platform.
Norwich Crown Court heard Shablinger, who had told the victim he was 21, met her in a park in Hethersett, Norfolk. He spent five hours with her until her mother located her.
Oliver Haswell, prosecuting, said the victim refused to say what happened between them during the hours she was missing in the park.
But a photo of the couple kissing was later found on a “secret” phone Shablinger gave him.
Haswell said the park meeting followed months of “fixing” that began on the online gaming platform Roblox when she was just 12 years old.
Last year, child safety campaigners urged Ofcom to act after a report branded Roblox an “X-rated pedophile hellhole”.
The popular game in which young people create or play in virtual universes has been accused of exposing children to “grooming, pornography and violent content.”
Michael Shablinger, 36, was photographed kissing the young woman making out on a ‘secret’ phone
spent months caring for the 13-year-old victim – who cannot be identified for legal reasons – after finding her on the video game platform Roblox
Last year, child safety campaigners urged Ofcom to act after a report branded Roblox an “X-rated pedophile hellhole”.
After meeting at the platform in May 2023, Shablinger agreed to meet the victim, who told her mother she was “going to take the dog for a walk” with a friend at 11 a.m. on June 16, 2024.
But when she didn’t return, the mother went out to look for the missing girl herself and found her in a park with Shablinger.
The defendant, who said he “just met her,” left the area on a bus.
The victim then lied to her mother about what happened, prompting the concerned mother to contact police.
Once home, the victim stated that she was feeling sick and went to her room.
But the mother later found her daughter “hiding something in her bed”, which turned out to be a “secret” mobile phone that Shablinger gave her when they met.
There were messages containing requests from him for “more meetings”, a photo of them kissing and telling him to “hide the phone” from his mother.
Police discovered the phone also contained conversations about the defendant seeking a passport for the victim so she could “leave the country to be with him.”
Shablinger was arrested by Border Force officers at Heathrow Airport as he attempted to board a plane to Munich on June 23.
Police confiscated his phone and found indecent images and videos of unidentified children on it, as well as indecent images of the victim.
The prosecutor said that “many” sexualized images and messages were exchanged between the two.
Hindenburg study claims there are ‘sex parties’ on online gaming platform Roblox
Haswell said Shablinger encouraged and “instructed” the victim to commit sexual acts and recorded her doing so.
She said the victim refused to tell police what happened when she and Shablinger met and even sent her a message saying “be lucky, I lied to the police.”
Shablinger, who was born in Austria but lives in Germany, appeared in court on Wednesday after admitting that he met a girl after being sexually harassed.
He also admitted sexual activity with a child and six offenses of possessing more than 800 indecent images of children.
Three of these crimes were related to photographs and videos of the victim – including five of category A, the most serious – and another three with unidentified children, including 346 of category A.
Recorder Paul Garlicked imposed an extended sentence of eight-and-a-half years, made up of four-and-a-half years custody and four years’ licence.
Ed Renvoize, mitigating, said the defendant accepted “this is an extremely serious case” but deserved full credit for his allegations about the offences.
He said Shablinger “lied about his age” but insisted there was “no kidnapping or detention” in this case.
Shablinger was also made the subject of a Sexual Harm Prevention Order (SHPO) and placed on the sex offenders’ register, both indefinitely.
He was also prohibited from contacting or attempting to contact the victim directly or indirectly until further orders.
Roblox has no age restrictions as campaigners say UK communications watchdog Ofcom must make a “radical change” as it implements and enforces the Online Safety Act (OSA).
American investment firm Hindenburg Research issued damning conclusions after a lengthy investigation into the controversial platform.
Roblox accused of exposing children to ‘grooming, pornography and violent content’
In response to the criticism, Roblox said: “We totally reject the claims made in the report.”
The new law will impose new obligations on social media sites for the first time. The largest and most popular ones, as well as those that have children among their users, must face the strictest rules.
Platforms must implement and enforce safety measures to ensure that users, and particularly young people, do not encounter illegal or harmful content and, if they do, it is quickly removed, with those who break the rules facing large fines.
Among the campaign groups urging Ofcom to act is the Molly Rose Foundation, set up by the parents of Molly Russell, 14, from Harrow, north-west London, who took her own life in 2017 after viewing harmful content on line.
Roblox rejected Hindenburg’s allegations and insisted that security was “fundamental” to the company. And Hindenburg has also stated that he is attempting to profit from a drop in Roblox’s value by taking a “short” position in the company’s share price.
The online gaming platform has been successful with young children: it offers a number of different games and interactive tools, as well as the ability to create their own challenges.
But Hindenburg’s study raised concerns about inappropriate links being accessible to children when they access the site.
The report states: “The core of the problem is that Roblox’s social media features allow pedophiles to efficiently target hundreds of children, without any initial screening to prevent them from joining the platform.”
It also says there are “digital strip clubs, red light districts, sex parties and child predators lurking on Roblox,” which has 80 million daily users.
Researchers in the US investigating Roblox found 600 results when searching for ‘Diddy’ games
And Roblox was accused of being “an X-rated pedophile hellscape, exposing children to bullying, pornography, violent content, and extremely abusive speech.”
Hindenburg also said he found multiple accounts named using variations of the name of disgraced pedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein.
A Roblox spokesperson said in a statement in response to Hindenburg’s study: “Safety and civility have been fundamental to Roblox since our inception nearly two decades ago, and we have invested heavily throughout our history in our Trust and Safety efforts. Security”.
‘Every day, tens of millions of users of all ages have safe, positive experiences on Roblox and adhere to the company’s community standards. However, any security incident is horrible.
“We take any content or behavior on the platform that does not meet our standards very seriously and have a robust set of proactive and preventative security measures designed to detect and prevent malicious or harmful activity on our platform.”
Hindenburg Research teams investigating Roblox attempted to create accounts using the names of notorious child molesters and criminals.
They attempted to create one under the name of Earl Brian Bradley, a pedophile convicted of sexually abusing 103 children, but discovered the username was already in use, along with a number of variants, including earlbrianbradley69.
There were 900 variations of the name ‘Jeffrey Epstein’, plus 600 results when searching for ‘Diddy’ games.
Some of these games were titled ‘Diddy Party’, ‘Run from Diddy Simulator’ and, separately, ‘Escape to Epstein Island’.
Young people with “child accounts,” meaning those under 13, could also search for “adults” to find inappropriate content.
Roblox itself reported more than 13,000 incidents of child exploitation to the US National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in 2023.