A teacher from Utrecht has been sentenced four years in prison for the sexual abuse of several pupils at different schools over a period of seven years. The court also barred the 46-year-old from teaching for the next nine years.

The case came to light when one of his victims reported him to the police in 2024. Olav A, then 38, had started a relationship with her when she was 17 at a school in Zeist.

Two other reports followed from girls at a school in Almere, where A worked as a pupil support coordinator. They were 16 at the time.

A, who admitted he felt attracted by girls from the age of 14, groomed vulnerable girls who came to him for advice and went on to abuse them, first by having them send explicit photos and later by having sex with them at his home, the judge said.

He also groomed other young girls on social media, where he pretended to be 16. Police also found images of child pornography on his phone.

Rumours about the teacher had been doing the rounds. However, schools are limited when it comes to sharing information about former teachers because of privacy rules, the Volkskrant said in a reconstruction of how the abuse was allowed to continue for that amount of time.