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| - The trial of a British man convicted in the UK of possessing child pornography opened in Bulgaria Friday on charges of sexually abusing eight underage boys in a poor Roma community. Their families have refused to press for civil damages, however. Daniel Erickson-Hull, 44, was detained last September in the central town of Sliven, where he was a self-proclaimed evangelical preacher. He is charged with sexually abusing eight boys under the age of 16 by exploiting his position of trust. According to the charge sheet, Erickson-Hull committed the offences in 2018-19. The boys and their parents were present in the courtroom, but have refused to seek damages as civil plaintiffs. "We want the court to free him, he has not done anything," a father who wished to remain anonymous told AFP. Erickson-Hull's lawyer Svetlozar Nikolov said his client's rights had been violated by faults in the investigation. "The charges are based on illegally conducted questioning of underage children, done under stress and without the presence of a parent," Nikolov told AFP. Erickson-Hull's defence team requested the trial be delayed to have the case referred back to prosecutors, but was turned down. The accused, who has been held since his arrest on September 12, entered the courtroom in handcuffs and did not speak to the media. The charges followed a BBC report that revealed he had breached a UK court's orders by failing to tell British police he was leaving the country and by spending time near unaccompanied children. Erickson-Hull had been sentenced in Britain for downloading hundreds of indecent images of children. The next hearing in his Bulgarian trial is scheduled for August 14. If found guilty, Erickson-Hull risks a prison sentence of two to eight years. The Sliven court has heard at least seven cases related to sexual abuse of minors in the town's poor Roma neighbourhood since 2017, according to court data. Most were related to marriages of underage girls who had borne children. ds/jsk/wai
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