Sentence to 3 years in prison, suspended for 3 years by the Joint Jury of Appeal Thessaloniki A 41-year-old man who had sexually explicit photos of a 14-year-old girl he met online. He was found guilty of possessing child pornography material over the Internet, with two extenuating circumstances admitted – a previous honest life and sincere remorse.

According to the case file, it all started in the summer of 2011, when the defendant met a 14-year-old (then) high school student on a popular social network. Acquaintance grew into personal communication, either by SMS or by phone. According to the same case file, two months after the start of their conversations, the 41-year-old demanded that the minor send him photographs in which she was depicted naked and in certain poses. She made sure and sent him the photos.

The tangle of affairs began to unravel when, a year later, the minor secretly left her home in Aetoloakarnania to meet him in Thessaloniki. However, because she had the wrong address, the little girl wandered around the city for two days until her father contacted the defendants and they searched the city until they found her.

“He introduced himself to me as a 25-year-old man,” testified, among other things, the patient (today 25 years old) in court. In his apology, he stated that he did not know her real age, given that she was an older girl. He apologized that today he lives and works in Germany.

In the first instance, the 41-year-old man was sentenced to 5 years in prison, but he was released pending an appeal hearing.