A famous Greek children books author has been arrested for possession of child pornography. The 53-year-old man was arrested already on October 18 and was remanded in the special prison for sexual offenders since then. The case became known today, November 2.
The multi-awarded author V.P. was also the head of the children’s department of a well-known publishing house based in Athens.
According to newspaper tovima.gr, publishing house Kastaniotis issued a statement saying that “we stopped any form of cooperation as soon as we were informed that a criminal investigation is underway by judicial authorities, for a serious charge.”
The author had reportedly over 100 child pornography videos on his hard drive, the victims were boys and girls aged 10 to 12.
According to media, he claimed to police that he had massively downloaded “primary material” as inspiration with the aim to write a new book.
However, many Greeks on social media wonder why he has not written the book yet, or a sentence or even the title.
The argument failed to convince both the investigative magistrate and the prosecutor who remanded him right away.
V.P. has been the author of children and teenagers books “dealing with issues such as bullying and sexism in schools, interpersonal relationships, racism and repressed homosexuality,” as he notes one of the back pages of one of his books.
How the Cyber Crime Police located him
The author was reportedly located visiting and downloading child pornography with a special scanning software Child Protection System of the Cyber Crime Police.
After an investigation that lasted over a month, ECP analysts found in his files more than 100 videos with hard pornographic material with children under 12 years old.
According to Live News Mega TV, he was downloading such material over a period of 5 years.
The case is evaluated by ECP officers as “extremely serious,” his connections with global child pornography circuits are also being investigated and whether had other activities.
According to Greek Police announcement, “the arrest was made in the context of actions to deal with the phenomenon of child pornography, following the use of information received from foreign Authorities, through international police cooperation.”
After a thorough online investigation, a user was identified, within the Greek territory, who gained access to various websites – applications and possessed files suitable for distribution with material of sexual abuse of minors, the statement added.
It stressed “the case was brought to the attention of the Athens District Attorney’s Office and a relevant order was issued to remove the confidentiality of the communications, while after correspondence with the internet service providers and further police investigation, the details of the person involved were identified and his place of residence was revealed.”
Police officers conducted a search at his home, where a total of 2 hard drives were found and confiscated, while a number of minor pornography files were identified from the on-site search of the digital evidence.
The seized digital evidence will be sent to the Directorate of Criminal Investigations for further laboratory examination.
Why arrest announced with delay
Regarding the late announcement of the author’s arrest, a police spokeswoman told ANT1 TV that the man was arrested on Oct 18 and remanded custody on Oct 26 as investigation continued.
“The reason there was no announcement is because the investigation by the Cyber Crime Prosecution for correlation with other cases of the agency continued,” she said.
Asked why his data and picture have not being published, she said that, “there is no prosecutor’s order to publish them,” explaining that, “not all cases are the same. He had material in his possession, he is not accused of abuse. He had gained access to specific applications and was storing this material.”
Greek society in permanent shock
The author’s arrest sets a new shock to the mainly conservative Greek society that has been bombarded with news about sexual and physical abuse of children in the last few months and thus in a country where speaking loud about such topics was a top category Taboo.
The case of the 12-year-old girl that was raped and forced to “sexually please clients against payment” in Athens for at least 6 months still shocks Greeks as new details surface following the ongoing investigation.
Beginning of the week, a new horror story came out, when a girl (now 22) and a boy (now 17) filed a complain that they were sexually abused by their father, his brother and other people (men and women) special organized “parties” when they were minors. The prosecutor has raised charges, among some 10 defendants are also two foreign nationals.
