Over the course of six years, a man in his 30s subjected nine little girls to sexual abuse at preschools he worked at in Ljusdal. When the information about the designated pedophile came to light, the municipality was in shock – but at the same time some are not surprised at all. Rumors about him already came in the middle of the 2000s.
An old schoolmate now comes forward and tells TV4 Nyheterna about the man’s boundless sexual behaviour.
– It already started in primary school. Then he was on girls and taking care of their bodies. He had always been the person around whom you felt uncomfortable. Something has not been right, as it were, but you haven’t really been able to put your finger on what. I didn’t want to be left in a room alone with him. When we started seventh grade, it was like something happened and it escalated, says the woman.
Alerted the school – nothing happened
The municipality has previously come out and said they had no reason to suspect the man as it was a person who was very popular. But the woman that TV4 Nyheterna talks to gives a completely different picture.
– He could hold us against walls and just take it for himself. He sat over one on the floor and held one. He had an incredible amount of porn on his phone that he shoved in our faces and wanted us to look at. He could snap at us, on our breasts or butts or if the panties were showing or whatever. He had his phone full of both porn and pictures of girls at school, she says.
Although the woman alerted the school repeatedly, nothing happened.
– I talked to my teachers often and my parents also did it at development meetings, but we were only told that he was having a hard time at home so they couldn’t put anything more on him. They never had a conversation with him. But they were able to drag me into a crisis meeting without a guardian to be able to “talk to me properly”, she says.
Reported the school
She testifies that there were several girls who were exposed during the school years and that today it feels unreal to have gone through everything. When the school did not listen to her, she chose to make a report to the Gender Equality Ombudsman, which TV4 Nyheterna has seen.
– It was constant that I went and talked to teachers and the principal, but they just swept it under the carpet and didn’t take me seriously. It was just a matter of me keeping quiet and moving on. It went so far that I reported the school to the Equality Ombudsman. I made the report because the school did not help me with this. They thought I should just quit, she says.
Received damages
She says that she received 60,000 kroner from the municipality in damages after the school collapsed on several points. The woman says that she was the one the man was on most and that basically things happened on a daily basis. When the information that the man had sexually assaulted preschool children broke, she was not surprised.
– I had time to read about this and immediately understood that it was him. At the same time, I have blamed myself for not doing more 16 years ago so that the municipality, teachers and principal would listen to me and take me seriously. If they had done it and had it documented, maybe they would have been able to see it when they wanted to hire him at preschools, she says.
How have you been feeling lately?
– Feelings have fluctuated. From sitting there feeling like a 15 year old girl again to being so freaking pissed off that they didn’t do something then and take me seriously. School, municipality and everything let me down and failed. If something could have been prevented then it would have been good, it should not be able to happen again. That you got away as many times as he did.
The municipality’s response
Linnea van Wagenen is head of municipal management and sits on the preparedness group in the municipality. She responds to the criticism via email.
“We will not be able to answer those types of questions today or in the near future. We have asked an external investigator to review us, and then we do not want to preempt that investigation and have drawn any conclusions of our own. We will not leave any individual comments until it is ready,” she writes.