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Scene from Amanda Todd's video
Photo:
dpa
The trial of a man from the Netherlands who allegedly bullied a teenager online before her suicide in 2012 has begun in Canada.
The death of 15-year-old Amanda Todd caused quite a stir at the time, as she previously shared her story in a YouTube video that later garnered millions of views.
In the video, she holds signs she wrote herself into the camera and talks about harassment and attempts at blackmail by an anonymous user, who finally distributed her photos on Facebook and sent them to her classmates in a targeted manner.
A few weeks after posting the video, Amanda Todd committed suicide.
The trial is expected to last a total of seven weeks.
Aydin C., a Dutchman in his forties, is accused.
He is charged with possession of material showing sexual abuse of children, criminal harassment and extortion.
C. pleads not guilty.
He is accused of first convincing Amanda Todd before her suicide to show him her bare breasts via webcam.
He later blackmailed her with the picture of it - and eventually circulated the photo online after Todd refused to comply with C's request for a "show" for him.
The Netherlands extradited C. to Canada in December 2020.
"This is Amanda's moment," her mother, Carol Todd, said at the start of the British Columbia Supreme Court trial in New Westminster.
Prosecutor Louise Kenworthy said Amanda Todd was bullied between the ages of 12 and 15 by a single person using 20 different user IDs on Facebook, YouTube and Skype.
The defendant C. had already been sentenced to around eleven years in prison in the Netherlands in 2017 – for “sextorsion”, i.e. blackmailing dozens of girls from the Netherlands, Great Britain, Australia, Norway, the USA and Canada with sexually explicit photos and films.
At the time, the court called the defendant's behavior "harsh and merciless."
pbe/AFP
