German couple sold woman’s young son for sex on ‘dark web’
A COUPLE in Germany were yesterday jailed for more than 12 years each for the repeated rape and abuse of the woman’s young son and for selling him to paedophiles for sex.
In one of the most disturbing child sex cases ever heard by the German courts, the 48-year-old woman and her partner were found guilty of selling the child for sex over the internet on almost 50 occasions.
They were also found guilty of filming themselves raping and sexually abusing the child and distributing the video to paedophiles via the “dark net”, the unregulated part of the internet.
The woman, named only as Berrin T under German privacy laws, was sentenced to 12 years and six months in prison.
Her 39-year-old partner, named only as Christian L, was sentenced to 12 years in prison. He has a previous conviction for child sex crimes and was ordered to be kept in indefinite preventive detention after completing his sentence so that he cannot harm any more children.
Six other defendants have also been sentenced to lengthy prison terms for sexually abusing the woman’s son, who is now aged 10 and was not named under child protection laws. The couple were also convicted of the sexual abuse of another child, aged three.
It was Berrin T who carried out “the most violent acts” in video footage of the abuse shown to the court, Judge Stefan Bürgelin said as he sentenced the mother, adding: “Although her son cried out in pain, she did not leave him alone.”
Berrin T had initially allowed Christian L to abuse her son and participated herself because she did not want to jeopardise her relationship with her new partner, the judge said.
Later the couple’s motive became financial, as they began to make money from prostituting the child over the internet. The court heard how the couple made thousands of euros by selling the boy to paedophiles who sexually abused him.
They sold time with the child over the “dark net”, an area of the internet that is inaccessible without specialist software and used by paedophiles and criminals to hide their activities.
A psychiatrist testified to the court that Berrin T had shown no previous tendency to paedophilia, but that she was “prepared to sacrifice both her own child and another child” to maintain her relationship with Christian L.
The judge said he believed she was still capable of rehabilitation, and so did not hand her the maximum possible life sentence.
The judge said Christian L had received a slightly lower sentence after he testified against the boy’s other abusers. But he added that the 39-yearold could not be released because of the risk he would abuse other children, and said he would be held in indefinite preventive detention after completing his sentence.