A 27-year-old man from The Hague has been jailed for five years for sexual abuse and disseminating child pornography involving at least 30 girls aged between six and 12-years-old from the Netherlands and Belgium.

Ibrahim A approached the girls on Snapchat and TikTok posing as a woman working for a modelling agency. The man first asked for simple photographs but then went on to ask the girls to photograph themselves naked or, in some cases, while performing a sexual act.

User names were visible in some of the footage, giving police clues to the girls’ identity. Police confiscated computers, tablets and phones at the man’s home with at least 3,000 files containing child pornography at the time of his arrest last year.

Ibrahim A was also ordered to pay 17 of his victims between €3,000 and €4,000 in compensation.

The jail term is lower than the public prosecution department had demanded but the court said A had cooperated fully with the investigation and agreed to undergo treatment.

He had also expressed deep remorse for his actions and told the court he regarded the court case as a “new start”.