He was arrested in 2008, accused of molesting hundreds of children since 1976, and in 2010, he was convicted and sentenced to preventive detention with a minimum term of 9 years, with the possibility of extension for as long as he is deemed a danger to society.
[1] "The Pocket Man" was originally the name given by the Norwegian police and media to the then unidentified child molester.
"The Pocket Man" might have lured boys in numerous localities and has been characterized by law enforcement as a "dangerous serial criminal".
The suspect remained anonymous until he was identified as Erik Andersen by Norway's largest daily Verdens Gang on 22 August 2009.
[12] Norwegian media had previously refrained from using his name and picture as requested by the police, in order not to harm the investigation.
The more serious offenses he is alleged to have committed include oral sex,[15] which in some cases borders on the Norwegian criminal code's definition of rape.
[16] The police allege that "The Pocket Man" on several occasions forced the boys to perform oral sex on him.
Oral sex is equated with intercourse in the Norwegian penal code and, if performed under coercion, has an upper limit of 21 years in prison, the maximum sentencing in Norway.
[18] Other commons traits[19] of the cases are: The first assault known to the police as of January 2008[update], took place in Åsane, Bergen[20] in the latter half of 1976.
During the subsequent years the incidents were limited to the Oslo region, until 2003 when a tendency was noticed of offenses appearing in other localities throughout Southern Norway,[23] in 2003 the person is alleged to have been both at Quality Hotel and Badeland in Sarpsborg.
[15] Police in Norway currently lack a centralized computer system which is able to reveal similarities between individual cases.
The Ski police discovered that the evidence was basically quite flimsy, there was for instance a lack of such essentials as interrogations.
A new team which will be working exclusively on "The Pocket Man" was established in the first two weeks of 2008 in Bergen, where investigators believe the entire case may have begun.
[16] Police secured genetic fingerprinting of several crime scenes, including one incident in Trondheim, where "The Pocket Man" had been photographed by a surveillance camera on 6 September 2003.
[32] National Criminal Investigation Service believed in October 2007 that several named men from Oslo or Eastern Norway could possibly be "The Pocket Man".
Because the Norwegian criminal code equates oral sex and intercourse, the case has a punishment limit of 21 years, and hence the police were able to conduct a secret search.
[37][needs update] He has consistently agreed to prolonged detention to avoid being hounded by the news media should he have been released before the trial.
[42] In June 2009, Swedish police announced that they had identified two unsolved abuse cases which they believe could be tied to the Pocket Man.