Sentencing underway for Dutch man convicted of cyberbullying Amanda Todd

The sentencing hearing for the Dutchman convicted of harassing and extorting BC teenager Amanda Todd got underway in New Westminster Tuesday.

Todd died by suicide in 2012 and her death pushed the issue of cyberbullying into the spotlight. Aydin Coban, a man now in his 40s on the other side of the world, had been harassing Todd using nearly two-dozen online aliases — and threatening to release intimate photos of her.

Coban has been convicted of similar crimes in the Netherlands and he was extradited to Canada in 2021 to answer for what he did to Todd. The jury unanimously convicted him of harassment and extortion in August.

Now, the Crown is seeking a 12-year sentence to be served consecutively to the one he was given in the Netherlands.

A BC judge will decide on the punishment for Coban after Todd’s family reads their victim impact statements.

“My daughter deserved to have a happy, carefree childhood and not to have to worry about any kind of daily torment she was subjected to,” Todd’s father, Norm Todd, read in court Tuesday.

#Justice4Amanda #Justice4All
Oct. 11, 2022 – Victim Impact statements (clipped)
“My daughter deserved to have a happy, carefree childhood and not have to worry about any kind of daily torment she was subjected to.” – Norm Todd.

— Amanda Todd Legacy (@AToddLegacy) October 12, 2022

Todd died 10 years ago nearly to the day — on October 10, 2012. She posted a black-and-white video to YouTube where she held up placards explaining the hardship she’d been going through before her death and the video has been circulated widely in the years since.

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Coban has been sentenced to more than a decade in prison in the Netherlands in connection with an unrelated case. He was found guilty of 72 charges including child pornography, attempted sexual assault of multiple girls, and one count of webcam blackmail.

A Dutch court document issued about the case described how Coban blackmailed his victims in a “ruthless” manner for his own financial gain.

He established contact online with multiple young girls, says the document, winning their trust by pretending to be a young boy or girl.

“In many cases, he … led girls to perform webcam sex acts,” says the document. “Later, he… demanded new shows in front of the webcam.”

The document explains that he would get the girls to comply by threatening to send explicit images of them to people they knew or post them online.

“If a girl did not respond to his demands, [the] suspect [did] not hesitate to actually send sexual images to the family and friends of the victim or [post them] on the web,” reads the document.

“You can guess what large and damaging impact this may have on the personal development of young girls.”