A court in the Netherlands has sentenced a primary school and tennis teacher to seven years in prison and subsequent long-term judicial supervision for the sexual abuse of five young teenaged girls.
The judges in The Hague found the 62-year-old man guilty of systematically abusing the young teenagers between 2007 and 2015.
The accused had known the victims from his work as a tennis instructor or primary school teacher in the town of Pijnacker, a suburb of The Hague.
According to the court, the judges found that the man had made the girls' childhood "a dark time of fear and loneliness" through his actions.
The victims still suffer from psychological problems such as sleeping and concentration difficulties, the court said.
One victim moved to another class out of fear of the teacher.
According to the court, the pupil suffered greatly from the fact that she was not believed when she tried to report the abuse.
Another victim has been unable to work and can no longer see a tennis court or play tennis, although the sport had been her great passion.
The convicted man must pay the victims compensation of between €1,500 and €20,000 ($1,600-$21,700) each.
The court found that there was insufficient evidence for the alleged abuse of a sixth victim.
The man was also found to have downloaded large numbers of child pornographic images from the internet almost daily between 2006 and 2023.