Public Prosecution Service demands seven years in prison against ‘master Oskar’ (58), who, as a caretaker at a primary school, secretly filmed students in the toilet

When Oskar van der V. tells his psychologist about his new job, he has been a janitor at a primary school since the end of 2019, the practitioner threatens to inform the school director. Van der V. entered treatment on his own initiative a year earlier because he wanted to stop watching child pornography. Through psychological help, he destroyed the “heaviest” child pornography he owned. “A curse,” he calls his pedophilia.

“I will not be thrown under the bus,” Van der V. had responded to his therapist’s intention. He feared that his secret would end up in the local community through the director. Ultimately, the psychologist gave greater weight to professional secrecy and the voluntary treatment stopped in 2022 due to a “breach of trust”.

Last September, the suspect was arrested on suspicion of indecent exposure, secretly filming students and possessing child pornography. According to the Public Prosecution Service, Van der V. committed fornication with seven students and secretly filmed eighteen underage students. This Tuesday, the Public Prosecution Service is demanding a seven-year prison sentence and TBS with compulsory treatment in the court in The Hague. The prosecutor also demands that Van der V. is not allowed to practice a profession around children under the age of twelve for ten years.

‘I liked the job’

Van der V., who was on benefits, said he was alerted to the school vacancy by social services. Despite his pedophilic feelings, he could not refuse the vacancy “without good reason”, he said in court on Tuesday. He expected that he would have left after his trial period, he says. “This isn’t for me,” he would say.

But he liked the job. Because of the colleagues, not the children, he emphasizes. Van der V. has a criminal record due to involvement in a fatal traffic accident, but has not previously been convicted of a sex crime.

The suspect said he was able to separate his pedophile fantasies from his work at the school. He said he would not have touched the students with ulterior motives. Pedophile urges would even have decreased at the school, he claims, because contact with children was more personal than online.

The suspect’s lawyer believes that a 24-month prison sentence and TBS with conditions is more appropriate, because his client “did not rape or abuse anyone” and only freely indulged his fantasies in a “virtual world in a nasty way.”

The court finds the defense of the suspect, who regularly talks under his breath, “sometimes difficult to follow.” The judge doubts whether the suspect could actually restrain himself. The images allegedly showed that he encouraged students, who needed help with a urination accident, for example, to change positions so that their genitals became more visible on camera. According to the police, he also once took a student to the storage room, after which he locked the door. Van der V. denies this, because “that was not allowed.” While in custody, Van der V. was not allowed to see the incriminating images again, he regularly says that he cannot remember the events well.

Van der V. had a good view from his office of children who left the gym in their underwear and wearing a urine necklace. The suspect then rushed to the toilet to wait for the students with the camera running. Due to a special function it was not visible that he was filming.

The suspect wrote online that he felt a student’s pubic area through the fabric of clothing. He also edited a portrait photo of a student by adding pedophile texts. He had a face book at home, because he said he was “not good with names.” He distributed some child pornography images taken at the school via Telegram and the encrypted messaging app TeleGuard. Filming the children, and the chance of being caught, created tension, he says.

Children have become anxious

At the end of 2022, a mother raised the alarm with the director because her daughter received a birthday present from Van der V. According to the child, the caretaker also gave a kiss on the mouth. Another student told her at home that “master Oskar” had declared his love for her, he wanted to get married and had given her a “spanking”. The reports did not lead to measures; the janitor said a student was having trouble because she didn’t have a father and his talk was believed.

The Public Prosecution Service is critical of the school, parents do not feel they are being taken seriously. Parents who exercise their right to speak say that their cheerful, outgoing children have turned into anxious students, who have many nightmares or do not dare to sleep alone. One child is undergoing EMDR therapy, another is said to be afraid of men with black shoes these days, because the janitor also wore them. A mother wanted to grab a phone out of a man’s hand during swimming lessons, even though it was probably a proud father, she says. Marriages are under pressure.

Last summer the police carried out a search. Officers found, among other things, three sex dolls, which the suspect used and sometimes provided with children’s clothing. He disputes that they are child sex dolls, as the Public Prosecution Service states. The dolls came from China and were therefore smaller, the suspect said. He used a bottle of GHB he found to arouse feelings, “sometimes sexual”, which were suppressed by the antidepressants and Ritalin he used to reduce libido.

The suspect states that he was “quite empty and emotional” at the end of the hearing. Van der V. has “really made a mess of it”. He would like to apologize to everyone involved. “I am certainly aware of what I have done,” he says.

He will be absent from the verdict on July 7.

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