A Norwegian psychologist in Haugesund, western Norway, was in police custody on Monday after police found what can be the country’s largest seizure ever of photos and videos showing sexual assaults against children.
The psychologist, who long has functioned as a legal expert in court and worked with children, has admitted to possession of the visual material “and laid all his cards on the table,” according to his defense attorney Ben Einar Grindhaug. He told Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) there was no indication his client had been involved in any actual assaults himself.
Police seized more than 1,000 hours of video and several hundred thousand photos of assaults on children, many of them brutal attacks on small boys. The psychologist admitted he had downloaded the material from the Internet. His arrest was the result of Interpol’s ongoing crackdown on such illegal material.
The psychologist’s arrest was the second involving large-scale assaults on children. A doctor in Sunnmøre was charged over the weekend with extortion, kidnapping and possessing photos of naked children. The doctor, who worked for an ambulance service and at a major hospital, is believed to have enticed as many as 200 young girls all over Norway into undressing on camera and then demanding money from them.
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