Almost shyly, the accused enters the courtroom, Johannes E. almost disappears in his oversized, blue hoodie, his back is arched. From time to time he looks at the audience, but then immediately looks away again. He is 22 years old, still almost a child himself, and he is said to have done terrible things to children.
Johannes E. is accused of having acquired child and youth pornography in more than 450 cases, from the point of view of the Landshut public prosecutor’s office he abused children, even if he did not touch them. Because: According to the indictment, E. got five girls between the ages of eleven and 16 to send him nude photos and pornographic videos of themselves via cell phone. He is said to have indirectly made sexual abuse possible by buying countless pictures and videos in which girls and boys are forced to have sex with adult men, for example. Yes, he is said to have even commissioned an abuse video himself. That’s how it is in the indictment, that’s how the public prosecutor put it before the Landshut district court on Monday.
They are unimaginable things packed in bureaucratic German, the accused listens almost motionless. According to the indictment, from March 2020 to January 2022 he wrote to five girls on the Whatsapp messenger service. The youngest was 11 and the oldest 16. E. asked her to send him naked pictures of herself and pornographic videos, says the prosecutor. He probably wanted to convey to an eleven-year-old that he was still a teenager himself, and he is said to have sent her a photo showing a boy’s bare abdomen. The prosecutor quotes messages with which E. wanted to encourage the girls: “Explain everything to me about your body,” he is said to have written to an eleven-year-old. “Stand in front of a mirror with your upper body free,” he allegedly asked a 13-year-old. Sometimes he sent pornographic pictures and videos himself. Once E. is said to have asked a girl to sign a contract. He wanted her as his “slave,” his “lust object,” and she was “willing to make her body available to him at any time for his satisfaction,” says the prosecutor.
All five girls sent him videos or photos where they are naked in erotic poses and perform erotic acts. Why? A police officer who was called as a witness on Monday is trying to answer that. He investigated the case and also spoke to the girls. E. partly posed as a 16-year-old girl named Anna, he says. He sent one of the young people the nude photos that he had received from another girl, probably to take away their shyness. He also offered Amazon vouchers in return, in one case there is talk of 500 euros. The requests basically came from E., says the witness. The longer a chat lasted, however, it also happened that a girl offered to send nude photos for money.
And then there are hundreds of pictures and videos that E. is said to have bought on the Internet for thousands of euros. The public prosecutor’s office apparently has chat logs between E. and alleged child pornography dealers. The accused wanted to know the age and sex of the children. And he is said to have placed orders. “I’m looking for someone who will do everything I say,” quotes the prosecutor from a chat, “no matter how perverse.” The judge speaks of a “children’s party” that is said to have taken place in the Philippines. The indictment states that E. wanted to order a video showing two 13-year-olds having sex. Investigators found hundreds of videos and photos on four cell phones, two laptops and a PC.
The 22-year-old states that he is “aware of his guilt”.
The public prosecutor’s office does not assume that E. knew what suffering he caused. E. has a “pronounced disorder of sexual preference with a pedophile component”, which is why he is not able “to see the injustice of the act and to act on this insight”. E. is therefore not in custody, but in the district hospital (BKH) Straubing. E. himself let his lawyer inform him that he was “accepting his guilt” and regretted his actions.
A teacher from the district hospital, who had four conversations with E., paints a completely different picture. E. told her that he didn’t remember what he had asked for in the chats. He had been on the Internet in a PC technology forum, where links to sex video platforms had appeared again and again, and he ended up on child pornography sites. He is also interested in adult porn, but the choice of child porn is just bigger. He himself does not currently see himself as a pedophile, but used to be interested in girls from the age of twelve. In the BKH, too, pedophilia is only seen as a “side current,” says the teacher. An assessment that was received with surprise by the court-appointed expert. He will present his results in the course of the process.