Murder Games: The Life and Death of Breck Bednar

Having a young son that plays games consoles and this includes online gaming I made a point of watching this docu-drama as a family so we can all realise the dangers that lurk in online gaming and discuss what we have watched.

Breck Bednar was a 14 year old schoolboy interested in online gaming with his school friends, among their online gaming group joined Lewis Daynes, an older teenager who spun a tissue of lies which initially impressed the kids.

Normally when it comes to online stalking or manipulation it tends to be an older paedophile type pretending to be someone else and much younger. Daynes really did not fit that profile.

This programme contains some dramatised scenes as well as interviews with Breck's family and school friends talking about Breck and how they feared that Breck was being manipulated by Daynes with lies. Daynes groomed Breck for a year so he could lure Breck to his flat in order to kill him.

The programme also talk to the police who investigated the crime and try to piece together what happened.

I can imagine it was very hard for the family to talk on camera and the reason they did it was to highlight the dangers of online gaming where people are not what they pretend to be. It would had been equally difficult for his friends to talk to the camera who are still teenagers. I think the programme-makers were sensitive to this as we could see this when they were setting up some of the interviews.

It is a difficult and harrowing programme to watch if you are a parent, but it is important that teenage kids see it.