Gerard and Teresa Hughes said their 17-year-old son Ronan, from County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, killed himself just hours after learning that the faceless criminals hounding him had followed through with a threat to send the images to one of his Facebook friends unless he paid them £3,300...
The heartbroken parents have also criticised the police's response after they reported the blackmail plot three days before Ronan's death.
The couple, from Clonoe near Coalisland, said their 'quiet, happy-go-lucky' son had been tricked into sending images on a social network site after receiving pictures of a girl.
Mrs Hughes said her son, a pupil at St Joseph's Grammar School in Donaghmore, told her about his situation three days before he died.
'He came to me and said "I'm in trouble here"', she said in an interview with the Irish News daily newspaper.
'He gave me his phone. They were looking for more than £3,000 for an image he had posted and told him they were going to show it to all his friends.
'They had sent him a list of all his Facebook friends. He texted them back to say "but I'm only 17."'
Mr Hughes said he took his son to a police station at Dungannon, but claims there was only one officer on duty and they were told there was 'not a lot he could do'.
'I knew Ronan was looking for help and I told him (the officer) that all my son wanted is for these images not to be posted,' he told the paper.
'If the police had given Ronan reassurance and said "we'll contact IT experts, we'll close this down, we'll stop that", Ronan would still be here today.
'That's why he came to us. He wanted help.'
The couple brought their son back to the police station the next day and spent several hours with officers but said they did not hear anything back.
Mrs Hughes said on the day of his death Ronan called her to say a friend had contacted him to say she had received a link containing images, but that she had not opened them.
Mr Hughes left work early to go home amid concerns how his son might react.
When he arrived he found notes on the kitchen table and then discovered his son's body in a field behind their home.
'The biggest point we want to get across is how naive parents are in relation to social media,' he said.
'There's no point in a parent taking a phone off a child when they don't know what they are doing themselves or how to access the technology themselves.'
Mrs Hughes said she and her husband felt it was important to speak out.
'We decided to speak out as this is something that could have been prevented,' she said.
'A child with mental illness maybe can't be stopped from taking their own life. But to think that Ronan was living life to the full and then all of a sudden something like this can pop up and take his life...that's why we had to act.
'It would frighten any of us how children can be the victim of these faceless individuals. These people had something that they were using as a lever to frighten the child.
'But he had told his parents and they went to the police. It is just so tragic that these faceless people have robbed a family and community of a much loved child.'
Scores of tributes have been left on Clonoe community Facebook pages.
His gaelic football team, Clonoe O'Rahilly's said the tragedy had cast a dark shadow.
A statement said: 'Ronan was a youth player, having played goalkeeper throughout his short youth career. He was a quiet and modest young lad who was popular among all players and coaches. His death has left a dark shadow hanging over our club.'
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