Man posing as a policeman charged with many online sex offences

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A man has been charged with having made girls aged between 12 and 18 get undressed online. The police have found 27 victims from Trondheim and southern Norway, but believe there are far more they haven’t yet found.

 

According to a press release from the Southeastern Police District, the man had contacted the girls through an online chat service.

In some cases, he had also made them touch themselves in front of the camera. Image material seized from the man’s computer shows that there are a further 41 girls police believe can be classified as victims he has criminally offended against.

Additionally, the material shows a further 54 girls where it is uncertain if there was a criminal offence committed, reported Ringerikes Blad newspaper.

‘The violations have continued for a period of several years, until June 2017. At that time, the defendant was detained in custody, where he remains because he is considered a risk to reoffend if bailed before trial’, wrote the police.

The man customarily tricked the girls, for example by posing as a policeman. There have been charges made for several of the offences, but not in all 27 cases for the time being, because some of the girls were over 16 years old.

The man has acknowledged his guilt, and has helped the police identify many of the victims.

‘There was some form of compulsion to his reckless behaviour,’ said police adviser, Hildegunn Teigen, of the Southeastern Police District.

In addition to getting the girls to undress in front of the camera, in some cases he has also made lewd sexual offensive behaviour towards them. There hadn’t been physical contact between the man and the girls.

‘In many cases, he had introduced a fictitious third person to whom the girls had undressed in front of a fake police identity, often in combination with the offender pretending to be the police himself,’ said the police in a press release.

The man had mostly used the internet site, ‘Omegle’, where users chat to strangers. The police have posted a YouTube video with advice to young people who use Omegle. They have also encouraged those who feel they have experienced something uncomfortable to report it to them.

‘It is desirable that girls who’ve experienced something uncomfortable online, and recognise what happened to themselves in the described behaviour and strategy used by the offender, to contact the police at Hønefoss,’ said the press release.

 

© NTB Scanpix / Norway Today