A Dutch national who flew to the US to sexually abuse a 6-year-old girl, whose mother he met online, should be jailed for five years and then sent to a secure psychiatric unit, the Dutch public prosecution department said on Thursday evening.

The 37-year-old persuaded the mother to cooperate in her child’s abuse and send photographs to him, the public prosecutor said. In some photos, the girl is seen with a piece of paper featuring the man’s pseudonym. This, said the prosecutor, is a ruse to win more respect from fellow paedophiles and win access to other material.

The man is also accused of spreading 37,000 photos and 131 films featuring child pornography.

Police were led to the man following a New Zealand investigation into child porn, which included some photos of the girl.

The man has admitted the offences but says the girl requested ‘private time with him.’ ‘If she had said no, this would never have happened,’ the public prosecutor quoted him as saying.

The girl’s mother is currently under investigation in the US.