Victim’s mouth taped – man (60) abused eight-year-old on Danube Island

He was sentenced to a total of four years in prison for sexual abuse of a minor and possession of child pornography. The abuse had already taken place eleven years ago. On July 15, 2013, summer camp counselors and a group of 40 children visited a popular water playground on Danube Island.

Abused on camera
The suspect is believed to have hung around there and specifically searched for possible victims. Eventually, he approached an eight-year-old and asked her if she had seen the little ducks. When the girl said no, he lured her away from the group into a bush. There, he removed her swimsuit, filmed her exposed body, and assaulted her while the camera was rolling.

“Cried for help”
“She began to cry and scream for help. He taped her mouth shut,” the prosecutor reported to a panel of lay judges (chaired by Andreas Böhm). Only after the camera was turned off did the man remove the gag and let the girl go, who ran to the care team and reported what had just happened. Despite an immediate search, the perpetrator managed to escape.

Only after more than ten years in prison
The child abuser was discovered more than ten years later when a search was carried out on the suspect’s home last autumn. He was unmasked when he was operating a cannabis plantation. The man, who had been convicted several times – he had served 17 years for attempted murder in Stein Prison (JA) – was arrested under the Narcotics Drugs Act. During the search, in addition to cannabis plants, a number of electronic devices, data carriers and the action camera were seized. The camera and an external hard drive contained the original recording of the abuse on Danube Island or a copy.

The evaluation of the other seized storage media also revealed 245,000 image files and 1,700 videos containing child abuse material. When confronted with this, the suspect claimed in court that he had been “transferred” by other prisoners to this collection in the Stein correctional facility.

“Certain tendency”
“I was using cocaine and alcohol. That’s no excuse,” he said. He “started talking to her somehow” and then “superficial touching” happened, he claimed. He “can’t remember exactly how I did it.” Asked if his sexual desire was directed at children, he replied: “After prison there was a certain tendency, that’s true.” He told the girl – “in a panic reaction because she was screaming” – that she had her mouth taped.

The man had been paroled from prison in late May 2013, just six weeks before the abuse. This lengthy sentence was based on a fact that the presiding judge briefly discussed: the man had broken into a house at night, tied up a six-year-old boy with a cable, taped the boy’s mouth shut, and then stabbed his father with the intention of robbing him.

60 year old is admitted
In the end, the defendant was sentenced to a total of four years in prison, taking into account his conviction a few weeks ago for operating the cannabis plantation, for which he had served two years. In addition, the 60-year-old was admitted to a forensic therapeutic center because the court psychiatrist who was called in stated that he was extremely dangerous. The 60-year-old did not see that last point and therefore did not accept the verdict. The verdict is therefore not legally binding.

6000 euros for victims
According to her legal representative, things are “not going well” with the now 19-year-old victim of the child abuser. The court awarded the young woman, who had joined the proceedings as a private party, an amount of 6,000 euros for the emotional pain she had suffered.