The young man was “excited,” as he said. He had just recently downloaded the Snapchat news service onto his cell phone and met a girl. “At first it was just normal small talk,” he said, using a question-and-answer game: How old are you? Where do you live? But then it got down to business, “it went in the direction of sex”. One exchanged pictures, nude pictures. Also detailed photos and videos: he masturbated, she masturbated.
He was 20 at the time, she was only 13. The pictures were discovered. The Snapchat adventure a year ago earned the young man a charge. Yesterday he had to answer to the youth judge in Kulmbach for the sexual abuse of children and possession of child pornography.
Picked up at work
The girl’s uncle and mother found the mess on the 13-year-old’s smartphone and informed the police. The accused was picked up at his workplace for questioning. According to Chief Public Prosecutor Jan Khler, at least ten photos and videos were exchanged.
District Court Director Christoph Berner asked: “Is it correct what the public prosecutor is accusing you of?” Yes, it was right – the defendant did not deny. He admitted that he steered the conversation and asked questions. He wanted to know, “Have you ever had sex?” That evening he was “no longer under control”. Some time later he got to know the 13-year-old personally, “with her behind the house”. They would have had a normal conversation, about family, school and so on. Then he had to hide from his mother and uncle and drove back home.
Mother is probing him
Later, says the defendant, he received a voice message from his mother. She was obviously not thrilled at all. She was “grumpy”, he said, and threatened the police. According to the prosecutor, the mother put the young guy on the tooth: she signed up for Snapchat and passed it off as a 14-year-old. And it didn’t take long before she had contact with the man. “I’m not doing that anymore, it’s completely through. I’ve learned from it,” said the defendant.
The network does not forget
“A difficult story,” said the juvenile judge. Once such images and videos circulate on the net, they can no longer be captured. “That is the dangerous thing for the girl.”
Stefan Frst from the Kulmbacher Jugendgerichtshilfe spoke out in favor of the application of juvenile criminal law and a monetary requirement. The defendant was an adolescent at the time of the crime. A delayed social maturity can be seen in him. He rejects pedophile ideas. He has seen his wrongdoing and is ashamed. In his words: “That was a bogus move.” He also stopped downloading Snapchat after the cell phone was seized. The prosecutor made the young man, who was on trial for the first time, aware that adults could face prison sentences of up to ten years for such acts. Because: “Girls of this age are extremely easy to manipulate and cannot judge what they are doing.” Khler thought 80 hours of work were appropriate for the act and guilt. He assessed the confession positively and stated: “The accused makes a reasonable impression. One can assume that a thought process has taken place with him.”
400 euros of money
The court found the man guilty and imposed a sum of 400 euros in favor of the Avalon Association, which supports victims of sexual crimes, and 40 hours of work at the Geschwister-Gummi-Stiftung. Berner urgently advised the defendant not to do something like that again: “We don’t want to see you here again.”
The man does not get the withdrawn smartphone back. It was instrumental in the act and will be destroyed.
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