Bochum: Sexual abuse - man sentenced to nine years in prison

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Defendant at the Bochum Regional Court (archive image)

Photo: Marcel Kusch / dpa

The Bochum district court has sentenced a 46-year-old to nine years imprisonment and ordered his subsequent placement in preventive detention.

In more than 400 cases, the man is said to have sexually abused a boy in his Recklinghausen apartment.

"We are dealing with an unusual case here," said the presiding judge Stefan Culemann right at the beginning of his judgment.

And for that he named several aspects.

On the one hand, there is the boy who suddenly disappeared from an assisted living facility for young people in mid-2017 and was only discovered by accident by the police two and a half years later.

When officials searched the defendant's home shortly before Christmas 2019 because there had been indications that the man had owned and exchanged pictures and videos containing child pornography, the boy was crouched in a wardrobe in the bedroom.

“It was different.

We know this"

On the other hand, there is the sheer mass of serious crimes.

"We assume that during the entire time there has been a sexual assault almost every day," said Judge Culemann.

And even with a »safety discount in favor of the accused of 50 percent«, there are still more than 400 individual offenses in the verdict.

One thing is certain for the judges: it was the 13-year-old boy who sought contact with the Recklinghauser.

After they met in a messenger chat, where it was always clear that sexual content was being shared, the first real meeting took place in the Recklinghausen district in June 2017.

According to the verdict, the boy admitted at a private hearing that he allowed the man to engage in sexual acts in order to supplement his pocket money.

"But that no longer applies to the later attacks," said the presiding judge.

The 46-year-old is said to have committed a variety of acts while the boy was sleeping.

With others, the student is said to have watched videos or played on his cell phone.

Hundreds of pictures and videos with sexual content were found during the search.

In addition, the officers were able to reconstruct the chats with several other men in which the participants exchanged pedosexual fantasies.

The judges therefore do not believe the 46-year-old's statement that the boy had initiated the sexual contacts the whole time and that he simply could not defend himself.

“It was different.

We know that «, said Judge Culemann.

In their plea, the public prosecutor had demanded eleven years imprisonment, and the accessory prosecution even demanded 15 years imprisonment.

The defense lawyers had pleaded for a maximum of seven years in prison.

The verdict is not yet legally binding.

wit / dpa