During the investigation into the fatal assault of a 73-year-old Arnhemmer in October, the police and the Public Prosecution Service encountered multiple assaults of alleged child abusers by so-called pedo hunters. Ten underage suspects will have to answer for nine incidents in the coming weeks to the juvenile judge the Gelderlander.
One of those nine assaults is the incident in the Spijkerkwartier in Arnhem, in which the 73-year-old victim died of his injuries in hospital. Two weeks later, the OM said the man had been trapped by pedo hunters pretending to be minors and making an appointment to have sex.
Five suspects were arrested for this. When it turned out that two of them were also involved in other cases of pedo-hunting, the police started a second investigation, writes De Gelderlander. Fifteen incidents emerged from this. In nine cases, there would be enough evidence for prosecution.
‘Not gentle’
The other six incidents were said to have been rejected because the victims did not dare to report it out of shame or because the police could not provide the evidence. “In these criminal cases, the men who were hunted have not been treated gently,” an insider told the regional newspaper.
The ten suspects come from Arnhem, Rozendaal and Westervoort. The boys would know each other through football, school or social media and in varying groups would lure alleged child abusers into a trap: sometimes with five, but more often with three or two.
Because the suspects are underage, their trial is behind closed doors.
Hundreds of incidents
Last fall, hundreds of incidents involving pedo hunters were spread across the country. In addition, alleged child abusers were assaulted, threatened or pilloried via social media.
Minister Grapperhaus, the police and the Public Prosecution Service made an urgent response call to stop doing this. “They think they are lending a hand to the law, but they are more likely to get us off the hook,” said Oscar Dros, citizen investigation portfolio holder at the police force in November. “Pedo hunters cost us a lot of extra work. That is at the expense of our existing work and therefore also at the expense of detecting child abuse.”
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