The alleged crimes were committed in Capranica near Viterbo north of Rome, Riano near Rome and Mazzano Romano, also near the capital.

Police said they had found images on his phone of three helpless women being sexually abused.

The filming of such acts passes the limits of atrocity said Pasquale Stanzione, president of Italy’s privacy watchdog Garante, on Monday.

He said that “the offended women and girls are two-time victims, and greater contempt is added to the crime [by filming it]”.

“The bitter chronicle of these months has shown us how the barbarity of rapes, committed by boys, in groups, on girls, alone, can exceed all limits of atrocity by being filmed, shared and mocked, as if it were a fragment of an ordinary everyday life.

A march against gender violence in Turin. (Photo: ANSA)

“To the violence acted on the body is added, if possible, with even greater contempt, the represented violence, exhibited like a trophy, while those who suffer it become twice the offended person.

“It is the secondary victimisation whose effects are exponentially and dramatically amplified online”.

Italy is suffering an apparent epidemic of gender violence.

ANSA