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Convicted paedophile accused of new abuse

A 43-year-old convicted paedophile has been arrested on suspicions that he molested a little girl while on temporary leave from court-ordered psychiatric care.

Published: 5 June 2009 08:53 CEST

The man had previously been granted short furloughs from a psychiatric clinic in Sundsvall, but was recently granted leave lasting five hours.

The 43-year-old reportedly made contact with the girl’s mother via the internet and was able to get close to the little girl as a result, according to the Sundsvalls Tidning newspaper.

“It was due to our internal security procedures that this was discovered and we filed a complaint with the police. I take what happened very seriously,” said clinic head Erik Söderberg, who has launched an investigation into shortcomings in procedures related to the man’s care.

The man has been a patient at the clinic in Sundsvall for the last decade. On Wednesday, police took him in for questioning and then ordered him detained on suspicions of sexually molesting a minor and for serious child pornography crimes.

Police also found child pornography on a computer and mobile phone owned by the 43-year-old, who was housed in a wing of the clinic where computers and mobile phones are permitted.

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Tensions mount in German Catholic Church over abuse report

Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki, Archbishop of Koin, at the autumn plenary assembly of the German Bishops' Conference in the City Palace. September 2020: Picture alliance / DPA | Arne Dedert

In a rare public rebuke, the diocese council of the western city of Cologne, which groups clergy and laypeople, sharply criticised Archbishop Rainer Maria Woelki, saying he had “completely failed as a moral authority”.

“We find ourselves in the biggest crisis that the Church has ever experienced,” Tim Kurzbach, head of the council, said in a statement.

“Those responsible must finally also take responsibility. We need clarity now. Otherwise we have no chance of getting out of this misery.”

Woelki, a conservative who has resisted Church reform efforts, has faced criticism for months for refusing to allow the publication of an independent study on abuse committed by clergy in his diocese, the country's largest, between 1975 and 2018.

Victims have expressed anger and disappointment about his stance.

Woelki has justified his decision by citing a right to privacy of the alleged perpetrators accused in the report, carried out by a Munich law firm, and what he called a lack of independence on the part of some researchers.

In early November, the diocese of the western city of Aachen published its own study prepared by the same law firm.

A study commissioned by the German Bishops' Conference and released in 2018 showed that 1,670 clergymen had committed some form of sexual attack against 3,677 minors, mostly boys, between 1946 and 2014.

However its authors said the actual number of victims was almost certainly much higher.

The revelations, which mirror paedophile scandals in Australia, Chile, France, Ireland and the United States, prompted Cardinal Reinhard Marx, a prominent reformer, to apologise on behalf of the German Catholic Church.

The Church currently pays victims an average sum of 5,000 euros ($6,067) “in recognition of their suffering”, as well as covering their therapy fees.

In September 2020, German bishops agreed that victims would be entitled to payouts of up to €50,000 each and an independent committee would be set up to examine complaints and decide on payouts from January 1st, 2021.

READ ALSO: German Catholic Church to pay abuse victims up to €50,000

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