A trial against a mother of three and her partner is ongoing at the Cologne district court. They are said to have almost starved a girl. Did the supervisor not notice anything?
In the proceedings against a mother who is said to have deliberately almost starved her daughter, a social worker who has looked after the family for years testified before the Cologne district court.
The starvation of a five-year-old was so obvious and immediate that a resident pediatrician never even examined her when she saw her: “Her life is in danger, she has to go to hospital immediately,” was his diagnosis. The social worker who had accompanied the child’s and his 24-year-old mother’s visit to the doctor reacted with corresponding alarm.
First she hurried to the car, but then paused: “On the way I thought, I can’t answer for that. What if I got stuck in a traffic jam with the child on the way?” Instead of driving herself, she had the pediatrician arrange for an ambulance to take over the transport from Bergheim to Cologne to the children’s clinic on Amsterdamer Strasse.
The social pedagogue now testified as a witness before the Cologne district court. There the mother of the almost starved girl and her temporary partner are charged with attempted murder. For a whole morning, the employee of the general social service of the city of Bergheim summarized the experiences that she and other specialists had gained with the family between 2017 and 2020.
She describes the defendant as cooperative, authentic, a woman who could get help: “That was really her resource.” The 24-year-old turned to the General Social Service with many questions about official letters, maintenance regulations and her apartment. When asked why the woman did not seek help when her child was almost starving, the witness did not know the answer either.
Child should not drink anything despite thirst
Two of her colleagues found on a Monday in August 2020 that the girl was “not well nourished” and that an appointment with the pediatrician was necessary. “I was accompanying him,” she recalled – and suddenly stopped. Her sober, factual lecture was interrupted by tears when she remembered the picture of the child: “You could tell at first glance that the girl urgently needed medical attention,” she finally managed.
In the car, the five-year-old only said “thirst”. When she asked if the little one wanted to have a drink, the mother refused. “She said she had just had some juice and a cheese sandwich at home. If she had another drink now, she would vomit.” In the doctor’s office it was not only shown that the little girl with a height of 98 centimeters only weighed 8.2 kilograms, but also that she could no longer stand from exhaustion.
Mother didn’t want to stay in the clinic
Against this background, it seems almost unimaginable that the child’s situation was not recognizably dramatic during the home visit a few days earlier. The specialists who took over him are currently no longer employed by the city of Bergheim. “Is there a context in terms of content?”, The presiding judge wanted to know. The social worker answered only hesitantly: “I think so.”
The mother, the witness recalls, reacted with concern to the alarming words of the doctor. However, she did not show excessive concern in the hospital: “Although she was strongly advised to stay there and look after the child, she preferred to go home,” reported the social worker. The little patient neither cried when she parted nor asked about her mother later.
No medical indication
After just a few days, the child recovered, ate normally and ran down the aisles. Medical reasons for his complete undersupply were not found in the children’s clinic. That does not match the statements that the mother had made to the specialists up until then: the child has hardly had any food with him for a few weeks and can hardly walk.
Overall, in addition to alleged omissions on the part of the mother and her partner, a chain of wrong decisions by various professionals seems to have at least not made the child’s situation any better. This not only affects the two former employees of the youth welfare office, but also the team at a daycare center. There the five-year-old and her brother were denied lunch because the meal money had not been paid.
Even after the job center had approved payments, the educators are said to have refused to eat the children: “In kindergarten you were set up in such a way that debts first had to be paid off,” reported the social worker. In this regard, she was able to switch those responsible at the facility.
However, that doesn’t make up for the painful experiences that the two small children had already had up until then: If their mother couldn’t pick them up in time for dinner, for example because of appointments at the job center, she had to watch their playmates’ lunch hungrily. With situations like these, among other things, the mother would have stated that she only brought the children to the facility irregularly.
New daycare brought neglect to light
Employees at an integrative day-care center that the little girl was supposed to go to, but which she did not attend at the agreed time in August, paid more attention. In conversation with the mother, the teachers there noticed contradicting statements about the child’s state of health that did not match the girl’s documents. They sounded the alarm and initiated two house calls, which resulted in a visit to the doctor and clinic. Until then, however, several days passed.
Brief, but telling, is a situation that the witness from the hospital remembers. At some point, from the window, she and the little one watched a family who got into the car. “Do they?” Asked the five-year-old. “The child is healthy again, you are going home”, she replied and asked: “Would you like that too?” The little one only said: “No. Don’t go home.” She currently lives in a small children’s home. The mother was deprived of custody of both children – and also of a third baby that she gave birth to during her pre-trial detention.
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