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One of the two defendants in the courtroom in Mönchengladbach
Photo: Roland Weihrauch / dpa
In a trial for the Bergisch Gladbach abuse complex, two men in Mönchengladbach were sentenced to long prison terms.
The district court imposed prison sentences of thirteen and a half and fourteen and a half years on the men from Krefeld and Viersen in North Rhine-Westphalia for serious child sexual abuse and possession and distribution of child pornography.
The man from Krefeld confessed to having initially sexually abused his now eleven-year-old daughter and, together with the man from Viersener, from spring 2017 onwards, his now twelve-year-old niece.
The 39-year-old from Viersen, on the other hand, had admitted to having abused his niece since 2015.
But he only admitted a third of the accused cases.
He was silent on the allegation of collective abuse.
The defenders of the two, who had demanded significantly lower sentences, announced that they would challenge the verdict.
In total, more than 100 cases of abuse were charged.
Some were hired because they could only have been solved with the help of the victims.
But, according to Judge Lothar Beckers, "we wanted to spare the girls."
With his extensive confession, the defendant from Krefeld had already ensured that the two victims did not have to testify in court.
"I'm sorry for what I did," the father said.
The two men had recorded and photographed their deeds.
In both cases the mothers apparently had no inkling of the martyrdom of their daughters.
The Krefeld native lived separately from the child's mother and abused the girl when she came to visit.
The sister had regularly entrusted her little daughter to Viersener.
The investigation into the abuse complex started with a search of a family man in Bergisch Gladbach.
Investigators found many digital contacts with other suspects who they accused of child abuse.
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sen / dpa