A man with what experts say is an obsession with weight and anorexia has gone on trial in Zutphen charged with starving, raping and threatening five young women.

Bob J, who is 44, is said to have trawled pro-anorexia websites looking for vulnerable girls, some of whom had a history of prostitution. The attacks are said to have taken place between October 2006 and April 2012.

The public prosecution department says J stimulated his victims to lose more weight, buying them scales as a present and telling them they were too fat. He is also alleged to have drugged them to assuage their hunger pangs.

One of his victims says she was given a target weight of below 32 kilos. All of the women, who ranged in age from 16 to 21, lost tens of kilos at J’s behest.

Diet

RTL news journalist Jeroen Wetzels said in his report on the case that J had been overweight himself and considered himself to be a ‘big fat tub of lard’. After his marriage broke up, he underwent a transformation, taking up sport and testing out diets.

J went on to develop an obsession with websites focusing on very thin women whom he ‘considered attractive’. Earlier reports say he posed as a therapist, offering ‘help’ to his victims whom he persuaded to live at his home.

J denies the charges, claiming sex with his alleged victims was voluntary. He also denies forcing one into prostitution. ‘That was what she wanted. She is an adult,’ he told the court.

The case continues on Thursday.