The Daily Caller
05 October 2010
BERLIN (AP) — A German court has convicted a former Roman Catholic acolyte and church youth director of sexually abusing children and sentenced him to four years and nine months in prison.
The state court in the central city of Darmstadt found the 31-year-old man guilty on Monday of abusing six boys, aged 11 to 13, court spokeswoman Christa Pfannenschmidt told The Associated Press on Tuesday.
The court said the eight abuse cases took place in Catholic and Protestant parishes between 2001 and 2004. The defendant, referred to only as Sven K. under German privacy laws, led youth groups and organized children’s theater events. Sven K. was convicted of giving the boys large amounts of alcohol and, in at least one instance, marijuana-laced cookies, before abusing them.
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Germany jails catholic volunteer for sex abuse of children
TimesLive.co.za
Oct 4, 2010 9:49 PM | By Sapa-dpa
A German court jailed a Catholic layman for 57 months on Monday for sexually abusing six children at holiday camps organized by the church and the council of his hometown.
“I’m very sorry. I am going to work on myself. This will never happen again,” the 31-year-old man said, weeping, before the sentencing.
The judge in Darmstadt, a Frankfurt suburb, told him he should request therapy while he served out his jail term.
The man was a volunteer church worker, assisting at Catholic ceremonies as an adult altar server. The offences happened in the town of Moerfelden-Walldorf from 2001 to 2004.
The man said he himself had been abused as a child when he first began as an altar server.Author: Sonja Jordans