Dutch Preschool Teacher Abused Dozens Of Kids

In what’s already shaping up to be the most disturbing story of the week, a Dutch teacher and babysitter has confessed to sexually abusing as many as fifty very young kids.

According to the AP, the 27-year-old man was a substitute teacher for at least two different Amsterdam preschools, and also advertised babysitting services on the Internet. But earlier this month, police in the US seized a cache of child porn, including a photo believed to come from the Netherlands. Dutch TV broadcast the picture (presumably it wasn’t explicit), the child’s parents recognized it, and their tip led to the teacher’s arrest. Authorities found child porn on his computer, and he’s since confessed to molesting dozens of children under four years old, with some news outlets putting the number of victims at over 50.

Dutch authorities typically don’t release photos of crime suspects — a reticence that seems almost quaint here in the land of To Catch a Predator. In this case, though, they’re publishing the teacher’s photo so that other parents whose kids may have been abused by him can come forward. It’s hard to tell what’s most upsetting about this story: that a man used his work with very young children as an opportunity to molest them; that he’s confessed to dozens of acts of abuse and there may be more; or that police say he may be part of a child porn ring with criminals in multiple countries. Summing up the entire case was a note left last night outside one of the preschools where the molester worked — pictured above, it reads simply, “horrible.”

Netherlands Police Ask For Public’s Help Over Man Held For Child Sex Abuse [Guardian]
Dutch Police Seek Help For Information On Possible Child Pornography Ring; Teacher Arrested [AP, via Newser]