Amanda Todd’s mother says her heart was pounding when she clicked on a link to an adult porn website that featured a picture of her teenage daughter a few days before Christmas 2010.
Carol Todd told the British Columbia Supreme Court trial against Aydin Coban, a Dutch man accused of harassing and extorting his daughter, Amanda, that the link to the site was contained in a Facebook message for her.
Coban pleaded not guilty Monday to charges of extortion, harassment, communication with a youth for a felony and two counts of possession of child pornography.
Crown prosecutor Louise Kenworthy said in her initial statement that Amanda had been the victim of a “persistent” online “extortion” campaign from November 2009 to February 2012, before she died by suicide at 15 years in October of that year.
Kenworthy said the “sextortionist” had used more than 20 different usernames to contact the Port Coquitlam teenager, threatening to send photos to friends and family showing her hand in her underwear and exposing her. her breasts, unless she had sex before. from a webcam.
Carol Todd told the jury that she took a screenshot and printed a copy of what she saw when she clicked on the December 2010 Facebook message link.
He said he had planned to report it to the RCMP the next morning because it was around 10pm, but an agent rang his bell around 2am to do a “check security “to Amanda, who was with her father at the time. .
Kenworthy showed the jury examples of messages sent to the teen via Facebook, YouTube and Skype, including one whose author said they would disappear if he did “10 shows.”
The prosecutor said messages were also sent to more than 100 Facebook users that Amanda knew, telling them she had exposed her breasts online and including a link to a website.
After receiving the initial message, Todd said he went with Amanda and her father to discuss the situation with the police.
Her daughter was calm and uncommunicative about the incident, Todd said, but after talking later, she concluded that it was because Amanda felt guilty and embarrassed and was afraid of getting into trouble.
Todd agreed with the prosecutor who encouraged his daughter to tell him if she was receiving messages, saying she would have no problems and that it was for Amanda’s safety.
Todd testified that Amanda was frightened when the subsequent messages caught her attention, and her anxiety increased with each message.
He said that Amanda felt that a stranger was following her or holding her.
Todd stated that Amanda had received voice lessons and that from a very young age she had discovered how to record herself singing and uploading videos to YouTube.
“It was a time when Justin Bieber became famous online,” she said, and like many other young people, Amanda also wanted to be famous.
Todd said that when Amanda stayed with her, she was restricted from accessing the internet and Todd’s laptop.
Kenworthy told the jury at the start of the trial on Monday that the Crown hoped to present evidence and call witnesses to show that the numerous accounts allegedly used to harass and extort Amanda Todd were operated on by Coban, who was arrested by Dutch police at home. its in January 2014.
Dutch agents searched Coban’s home and confiscated a desktop computer, laptop and hard drives, he said, and forensic copies of the contents of the devices were sent to the RCMP in BC.
An RCMP officer who examined the evidence is expected to find evidence of accounts allegedly used to harass Amanda on one or more of these confiscated devices, he said.
The trial will also hear evidence of filenames that referred to the teen, although the contents of those files could no longer be seen, Kenworthy said.
This report from The Canadian Press was first published on June 6, 2022.