In the trial for the abuse case in Wermelskirchen, the accused spoke out in detail about the allegations for the first time. "I committed the crimes that I am accused of," said the 45-year-old on Wednesday before the Cologne district court. What he did was "disgusting". It became clear to him while he was in custody, even though he knew beforehand that what he had done wasn't right. But at that time he "lived in a parallel world".
The 45-year-old is accused of a total of 122 crimes between 2005 and 2019 in the process. These include many serious cases of sexualised violence against children. According to the indictment, the youngest victim in 2012 was a girl around one month old. In addition, the 45-year-old is accused of aiding and abetting the sexual abuse of children and possession of child pornography. According to the indictment, the man had worked as a babysitter and thus gained the trust of parents and some of his later victims.
In the direction of numerous representatives of the co-plaintiffs, who represent the victims and their parents in the process, the 45-year-old said that he "abused and surreptitiously abused the trust of the families". "I'm going to have to live with the shame for the rest of my life. I'm so sorry," he continued. The man had already comprehensively admitted his actions at the start of the trial on Tuesday via a statement from his defense attorney.
The German was arrested by special police forces in December 2021 in the house in Wermelskirchen where he lived with his wife. A police officer reported on Tuesday on the witness stand that the accused wanted to be arrested on the "open computer" at the time in order to gain access to videos of the crimes and the collection of further child pornography. That "worked well," said the 61-year-old. The accused was in a video conference with work colleagues during the access.
The arrest and the traces found led to a large number of further investigations against the accused. According to the public prosecutor, there are now more than 130.
