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Crime scene campsite (archive): Some perpetrators have been convicted, the process of coming to terms with the authorities' failure continues
Photo: Guido Kirchner / DPA
When investigating the failure of the authorities in the Lügde abuse case, more and more youth welfare offices are coming under the spotlight of the parliamentary committee of inquiry in the North Rhine-Westphalian state parliament. According to SPIEGEL information, the committee has now requested the youth welfare office files from 23 cities in which victims of the abusers from the campsite in Lügde live. These include the cities of Wuppertal, Gütersloh, Detmold, Paderborn and Aachen. This emerges from the committee's decision to take evidence, which is available to SPIEGEL.
The parliamentarians want to check whether there were omissions and errors in youth welfare offices and whether children they are looking after may not have been protected as a result. This means that the failure of the authorities in the Lügde case could be even more extensive than previously assumed. After the decision, the affected cities will be informed that any destruction or deletion of files and data from telephone or social media communication is prohibited. According to the verdict against Andreas V. and Mario S., who were sentenced to 13 and 12 years' imprisonment with subsequent preventive detention, 32 of their children were abused, girls, but also some boys.
Since 2019, the investigative committee on child abuse in the state parliament in Düsseldorf has been reviewing the work of the youth welfare offices in the Lügde case.
They want to explain why the serious sexual abuse could have happened over the years, even though many of the children, including the foster daughter of the now convicted main perpetrator, Andreas V., were cared for by youth welfare offices.
Despite several indications of suspected abuse and endangerment of the child's welfare, they did not intervene or intervened only inadequately.
So far, the investigation committee has mainly dealt with the youth welfare offices in Hameln-Pyrmont and Lippe, which were responsible for the foster daughter of Andreas V.
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In the meantime, however, irregularities have also been uncovered in the Höxter youth welfare office, which had taken care of victims of the second main culprit, Mario S. According to her statement, the committee is now investigating a youth welfare officer from Höxter. She had made several notes on events in 2017 only in February 2019 and inserted them into the relevant file after the abuse scandal had become public. The investigations of the public prosecutor's office against youth welfare office employees in Hameln-Pyrmont and Lippe due to violation of the duty of care and in two cases also file manipulation were stopped at the beginning of 2020.