The trial of the 18-year-old youth will last at least nine days at Skellefteå District Court, spread over a couple of weeks.
Currently, a legal trial is underway against an 18-year-old boy from the Skellefteå area, who is suspected of a long series of sexual offenses against young girls aged eight to fourteen.
Norran recently reported on the indictment. Prosecutor Amanda Tapani believes that the 18-year-old should be convicted of a total of 24 different offenses against twelve young girls across Sweden.
The suspected crimes were committed between June and August 2024, when the accused was 17 years old.
When the trial begins in courtroom 1 at Skellefteå District Court, the scope and severity of this sexual offense investigation is amplified.
In addition to the victim's counsel Anne-Sophie von Ahn, who represents the young girl from the Skellefteå area and is present in the courtroom, the other eleven victim's counsels/legal representatives are participating from their own offices or from courts around Sweden.
The large screen inside the courtroom displaying all the connected legal counsels illustrates the enormous reach these crimes can have: victims and perpetrator never meet physically, but only through connections on social platforms such as Snapchat.
In short, literally and figuratively, these are cross-border and suspected crimes that do not require any physical meetings.
No victims are present in the courtroom in Skellefteå or via video link; the involved parties and the court will listen to recorded video interrogations. This is also standard legal practice when dealing with young victims under 15 years old.
Following the filing of a police report and subsequent investigative measures, the 18-year-old was apprehended in early November. He was remanded in custody three days later, commencing a months-long investigation into his interactions with young girls on Snapchat.
It is thanks to a Skellefteå father showing interest in the young girl's content on her mobile phone that this seven-month-long preliminary investigation is now to be assessed by a court.
– It was on August 12 that the father looked at the young girl's mobile phone and discovered what was on Snapchat. He found sexually explicit content there. This was photographed, and the next day a police report was filed, explains prosecutor Amanda Tapani.
After various investigative measures, it was decided that the 18-year-old would be arrested later in the autumn, and on November 7 he was remanded in custody.
There were several suspected offences against the nine-year-old girl: attempted rape of a child, gross exploitation of a child for sexual posing, and an attempted offence, sexual assault against a child, and sexual harassment against a child.
– The attempted rape involves him, during an ongoing chat conversation via Snapchat, attempting to coerce the young plaintiff to perform a sexual act comparable to intercourse, says Tapani.
The first police report against the 18-year-old was filed on August 13. This came after a father in the Skellefteå area discovered his daughter's conversations on Snapchat, which contained sexual content. The prosecutor highlights the father's actions as both crucial and decisive in uncovering the systematic sexual offenses.
The Skellefteå police initially investigated the case with victim interviews and tracing the 18-year-old. But then the case was handed over to the police investigation unit called ISÖB, an abbreviation for internet-related sexual abuse against children.
This was done considering the type of crime, according to David Nyström at the Skellefteå police (see also the fact box below). And after several months of reviewing the content on the 18-year-old's mobile phones, interviews with the boy, the young victims, and their relatives, the investigation has now grown to 24 charges and twelve victims.
The 18-year-old has never physically met his victims; everything has occurred through Snapchat contacts: videos, images, and written messages. In addition to coercing or attempting to coerce the girls to perform sexual acts on themselves, the investigation shows that the 18-year-old sent images of his own genitals. That offence is then considered sexual harassment against a child.
An 18-year-old boy is accused of systematically sexually abusing young victims he contacted on Snapchat. He allegedly coerced the girls into performing or attempting to perform sexual acts on themselves. Prosecutor Amanda Tapani states that the abuse was discovered when a father in the Skellefteå area examined his daughter's mobile phone.
Amanda Tapani points out:
– This preliminary investigation demonstrates the importance of adults and parents being aware of what can occur on the internet and social media, taking an interest in where children are when they are online, and the risks that exist.
– As adults, we must dare to make space for our children and give them a chance to talk. We often see afterward that there is guilt and shame in a child who has been subjected to this type of crime, that they, in the worst case, partially blame themselves for what happened, she adds.
When the 18-year-old was informed of the 24 suspected offenses, lawyer Ida Viderlund said:
– My client can neither admit nor deny the crimes because there are no memories of what is alleged.