Man sentenced to 10 years for raping two teen girls

A court in Noord-Nederland on Wednesday sentenced a 26-year-old man from Uithuizen to 10 years in prison for raping two young women in separate attacks in Groningen and Assen and for filming sexual acts involving multiple underage girls he directed online.

The court said the crimes, committed between 2022 and 2023, involved “very serious” sexual offenses and described one of the rapes as “a straightforward horror scenario.”

In the first case, in August 2023, the man followed a 17-year-old girl by car as she cycled home at night in Groningen. On a remote and poorly lit stretch, he lay in wait in nearby bushes, forced her off her bicycle and raped her. The court said the attack reflected “the scenario many women fear will happen to them.”

The second rape took place in July in Assen after he allegedly went on a date with a 19-year-old. The court said that after the date, he took her to an isolated location and tried to blackmail her into having sex with him. "When it became clear that she did not want to have sex, he raped her," the judges said.

He was also convicted of producing child sex abuse materials, as, according to the court, the man would make underage girls "perform sexual acts" on an online platform and record it.

Prosecutors had sought an 8-year sentence and TBS, the compulsory psychiatric treatment. The court rejected the request for psychiatric help, saying that the man "refused to cooperate" with a psychiatrist, making it impossible to evaluate him.

"At the same time, the case signals a very worrying picture of a young man who, in a calculating manner, displays serious sexually criminal behavior toward young women," the court said.