TWO SHOCKING cases of sexual predation surfaced yesterday, one involving a 42-year old man remanded on suspicion of molesting at least eight underage girls and a second involving a 38-year-old army staffer who allegedly abused an 11-year old girl he met on Facebook.
The 42-year-old Nicosia suspect who denies the charges, allegedly lured the eight girls, aged six to 12, to his house by telling them they could play with his pet dog.
The complaint was lodged after a local resident claimed to have seen the man indecently assaulting an 11-year-old girl outdoors, in a field near the suspect’s house.
Police investigations uncovered further allegations against the suspect, who is believed to have sexually assaulted at least seven other girls, the youngest of whom is just six years old.
The alleged crimes took place between November 2009 and early April of this year. The alleged sexual predator has been remanded in custody for eight days. The remand hearing took place behind closed doors.
Police have taken video statements by the girls. The Welfare Office as well as the agency dealing with domestic violence have become involved in the case.
According to detectives, the suspect would use his pet dog as a pretext to bait the unsuspecting girls to his house, where he would later molest them.
In the Facebook incident, the 38-year-old National Guardsman was yesterday remanded in custody for five days by the Limassol court in connection with the rape, corruption and sexual exploitation of a young girl also 11, whom he’s befriended on the social networking site.
Police said this was the first known incident in Cyprus where an alleged suspect had used the internet to arrange a meeting with a minor and then sexually abuse them.
According to police, a 38-year-old Greek national working for the National Guard and living in the Larnaca district was arrested on Wednesday and brought to court yesterday in connection with charges of rape, corruption of a minor under the age of 13, and sexual exploitation of a minor.
The 38-year-old had allegedly struck up a friendship with an 11-year-old girl from the Limassol district in January on the popular social networking site, Facebook. The two swapped phone numbers and continued to talk to each other via phone and text messages. In mid-March, the 38-year-old arranged to meet with the child in an unknown location in Limassol. Some days later, the 11-year-old told her mother about it. The girl went with her father to the British Akrotiri police to report the incident. The 11-year-old was subsequently examined by a gynaecologist and state pathologist, who determined that her hymen had been broken, indicating she had had sex for the first time. The matter was passed on to the Cyprus police who obtained an arrest warrant against the Larnaca-based soldier.
Police would not confirm whether the 38-year-old confessed to the alleged crimes, though it was widely reported in yesterday’s press that the man had confessed to having sexual contact with the girl, arguing that she said she was older.
Head of the Police Cybercrime Unit, Marcos Nicolettis, told the Cyprus Mail yesterday that his office had received four complaints of indecent online behaviour in the first three months of 2010, matching the total annual figure for 2009. All cases in 2010 involved children under the age of 14.
Nicolettis clarified that this latest case was about child abuse not “sexual grooming”, a more common crime perpetrated against online children, as the alleged perpetrator used the internet to get to know the victim and then arranged a meeting with her.
Sexual grooming is where the victim is usually encouraged by the suspect to take off their clothes or perform a sexual act online. The subsequent pictures are often used to embarrass or blackmail the victim into doing other things. “In this case, the victim and suspect communicated through social networking and then did the act,” said Nicolettis.
“It is the first known incident in Cyprus where a social networking site has been used to identify a minor who then became the victim of sexual abuse,” he added.
Last year, his office investigated four sexual grooming cases, while in the first three months of this year, four cases have already been reported: three sexual grooming and the latest incident of child abuse.
“We need to take measures. Our office has given 24 lectures so far to schools, parents associations and church organisations. There is an NGO dealing with this too, as well as teachers and us, what’s left is for the parents in the house to take measures,” he argued.
“The family has to work with us. Parents need to be more sensitive about these matters. We say no computers in bedrooms for under 14s. Children under 14 should not go on social networking sites unless supervised. They should not have uncontrolled access to the internet,” he said.
Nicolettis directed parents to two websites for parents to get advice on what measures to take: www.police.gov.cy and www.cyberethics.info.
Facebook has come under a lot of fire in the UK for its refusal to include a “panic button” on its social networking pages. British newspaper, the Independent yesterday quoted Jim Gamble, head of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP), accused the online giant of failing to report suspected paedophiles.
He said he had “real concerns” about Facebook’s work to protect children. He highlighted that CEOP received 252 complaints about sexual grooming, bullying and hacking from Facebook users in the first three months of 2010, none of which had been provided by Facebook itself. Gamble added this figure almost topped the 297 complaints received for the whole of 2009.
Facebook has refused to add a “panic” button to its site’s most popular pages which enable users to report abuse, arguing that its already existing protective mechanisms are sufficient.
Gamble argued that Facebook focused too much on monitoring content and not behaviour. He was quoted saying: “In many cases we are also seeing young people in the online environment being bullied to the point of suicide.”
The issue hit the headlines in the UK last month following the conviction of a serial rapist who posed as a young boy on the site to lure a 17-year-old schoolgirl to her death.
According to the Telegraph, Ofcom, Britain’s media watchdog, said one in five children between eight and 12 years old use social media sites like Facebook, Bebo or MySpace. These sites officially have an age limit of 13.
(source: cyprus-mail)
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