Sparrow nest
The Spatzennest was a Protestant institution of child and youth welfare at Hauptstrasse 44 in Ramsen . The sponsor was the Jugendhilfeeinrichtungen Südwest gGmbH, or JES for short. The facility itself had to close in 2007 due to incidents of ill-treatment and sexual abuse . Those affected also included children who were forcibly accommodated due to the Worms trials (1993 to 1997).
Worms processes
Six children who were housed in the Spatzennest children's home as part of the Worms events from 1993 onwards were not brought back to their parents by the youth welfare office . While all 25 accused were acquitted, but the youth office Worms decided in these children for the continuation of home care . The children showed, among other things, parent-child alienation .
In 1997, the Worms Youth Welfare Office assumed that the parents were guilty despite the acquittal: "We have a different opinion, as we come to a different assessment based on the statements and behavior of the children."
The home manager Stefan Sch. was later accused of deliberately inciting the children against their parents. Most of these children to this day believe that their parents sexually abused them.
Stefan Sch. also acted as the main witness against the parents.
Abuse in the sparrow's nest
On November 8, 1993, traces of vaginal and anal abuse were found in a girl who stayed in the sparrow's nest for five days by forensic doctors in Mainz, again in 1994. The tracks were so fresh that they couldn't have come from the accused parents. The court did not follow up on this information.
In 2002 the Bielefeld psychologists Katharina Behrend and Uwe Jopt prepared an expert opinion on the home on behalf of the Worms District Court; they criticized the home and were shocked by the children's lack of empathy . Jopt wrote: “Basically all children do not behave like abused, but like children who have been instilled with a neurotic, irrational fear of their parents. In their eyes the parents have become monsters, which to meet is connected with the greatest danger. ”He described:“ They sat there stuporously. At most, biting, ice-cold rejections, as if learned by heart, came from them. No child was willing to have even minimal contact with their parents or any parent, in whatever context. Their lack of empathy was uncanny, even delusional. ”The youngest child replied to Jopp's question about what happened then with:“ Is everything in the files. ”The oldest young person responded to Jopp's suggestion of a non-binding meeting with the parents:“ If you try that, you can cut me off from the next tree afterwards. ”He suffered from diabetes and died on September 27, 2004 at the age of 18 a few days after his discharge from everyday life.
About the causes, Jopt said: “This is the result of a conditioning process by the carers. (...) It can be assumed that separation from their parents was associated with extreme emotional stress for all children. Both her sudden removal from the family and the subsequent disappearance of mother and father, contrary to promises to the contrary, must have had a traumatic effect on her. Such an intervention - this is a finding from attachment research - is usually experienced by children as a serious trauma. When they realize that their resistance to this act of violence is unsuccessful, they give up at some point in resignation. ”He demanded that the“ deforming care ”be ended and assessed the children concerned as“ mentally abused children ”.
Jopt also complained about disability of his work by the Youth Office Worms: "The fact that the behavior of these children Spatzennest something was wrong, that cried [ sic ] so the sparrows from the rooftops. In order to be able to have my conversations with the children at all, I first had to call in the court again because the youth welfare office refused me this methodological access decided by the court. "
As recently as 2005, the youth welfare office protested against the repatriation of the children, because "the children need protection regardless of the criminal case". Jopt raised the charge that the youth welfare office in Worms had "together with S. deliberately destroyed every attempt to bring the children back into contact with their parents". The youth welfare office in Worms referred to an expert opinion that the children showed “massive self-endangering behavior if contacts were made with their biological parents against their will or if they had to leave the Spatzennest residential group. The children need a high level of security and have expressed that this is currently only conceivable for them in the living group with the adults they trust. "
The sparrow's nest was disbanded in November 2007 and the inmates were moved to other facilities. At that time, the director of the home, a social worker by profession, had been dismissed by his employer on suspicion of sexual abuse of wards. In 2007, a hostel father, with whom S. had stayed in Austria with the children from his home for a holiday, filed a criminal complaint.
Various sexual acts had occurred, including enemas and vaginal lotion. For this purpose, Stefan Sch. even set up their own room, among other things. In order to keep the deeds secret, the home manager is said to have threatened that the children would no longer be allowed to see their siblings, who were also housed in homes, if they revealed something.
Wolfgang Scherer, head of the JES organization, said at the end of 2007: “We had absolutely no reason to doubt him.” He went on to explain: “We were always present on site - our head of education, a psychologist, is at least all four We drove to the sparrow's nest for weeks, talked to S., the children and servants. ”The responsible social affairs officer, Georg Büttler, said that there was no reason to“ give up the existing, excellent care for the children ”. The head of the state youth welfare office in Rhineland-Palatinate, Birgit Zeller, emphasized: “Everything was done that was technically possible.” The district court director Jean Frank stated: “Parental rights do not apply without barriers, you have to weigh it against the child's best interests goes first when in doubt. We as a court were faced with the question: can we justify giving the children back to their parents at this moment? We asked an appraiser. He said: You can't do that now, because of the traumatization, a return to the parents at this point in time would not be responsible. They were in a family atmosphere in the sparrow's nest, like in a foster family, and under no circumstances wanted to leave. ”Jopt criticized:“ Stefan S. is an ideologically disguised fanatic. But the youth welfare office has always stood before him. In my opinion, this is inhuman cynicism on the part of the youth welfare office. "
On February 8, 2008, the forty-year-old ex-home manager Stefan Sch. taken into custody, on July 29, 2008 the trial against him began before the regional court in Kaiserslautern . On August 22, 2008, he was found guilty of sexual abuse of children in two cases by the Kaiserslautern Regional Court in connection with the sexual abuse of wards and sentenced to one year imprisonment on probation and a three-year professional ban.
In April 2011, the former home manager Stefan Sch. again indicted by the public prosecutor's office in Kaiserslautern for even more serious abuse allegations for the period from 1994 to 2006, i.e. for twelve years. The allegation was abuse in 22 cases. Six girls were affected, including three girls from the six children from the Worms trials who were housed here by the Worms Youth Welfare Office. The scene of the crime was the home and a holiday camp. Stefan Sch. was sentenced to five years and eight months in prison for serious sexual abuse in November 2011.
The Federal Court of Justice rejected the defendant's appeal against the judgment by decision of February 28, 2013.
The appeal of the public prosecutor's office to obtain a lifelong professional ban on the defendant was rejected by the Federal Court of Justice on April 25, 2013.
See also
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f g Gisela Friedrichsen: The matter is not over . In: Der Spiegel . No. 9 , 2005, p. 50-56 ( online ).
- ↑ a b c Abuse process: How much to blame is the youth welfare office? In: NDR, May 20, 2011
- ↑ a b c d e Gisela Friedrichsen: Something like that shouldn't be allowed . In: Der Spiegel . No. 48 , 2007, p. 63-64 ( online ).
- ↑ a b Home manager is said to have abused eight girls. In: Welt, March 9, 2008
- ↑ Suspected sexual abuse - serious allegations against youth welfare offices. PANORAMA No. 693, NDR, February 14, 2008
- ↑ a b c The Spatzennest case - GAU for child protection ?. In: Allgemeine Zeitung (Rhein-Main-Presse), December 19, 2007
- ↑ Head of the home again in court for abuse. In: Welt, May 4, 2011
- ↑ Frank Fischer: Overriding court judgment. In: Worms City Magazine, December 5, 2013
- ↑ Reinhard Breidenbach: "What matters is the well-being of the children". Social Affairs Officer Büttler and District Court Director Frank reject allegations in the Spatzennest case. In: Wormser Zeitung, February 20, 2008
- ↑ Reinhard Breidenbach: Imprisonment on suspicion of abuse - police find incriminating images from the ex-director of the Spatzennest children's home ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . In: Rhein Main Presse , February 9, 2008
- ^ Former head of the Spatzennest in court , Panorama, DasErste.de, February 14, 2008
- ↑ Markus Fadl: Educator is banned from working because of child abuse . In: Der Tagesspiegel , August 22, 2008
- ^ Convicted ex-children's home director in court again , Spiegel Online, April 12, 2011
- ^ Judgment in the Ramsen trial: Ex-director of the children's home “Spatzennest” must be detained. ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Wormser Zeitung , November 15, 2011
- ^ "Spatzennest-Trial": Public prosecutor and defense appeal. ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Wormser Zeitung, November 23, 2011
- ↑ Federal Court of Justice judgment of April 25, 2013, Az. 4StR 296/12
Coordinates: 49 ° 32 ′ 13.6 ″ N , 8 ° 0 ′ 35.5 ″ E