Rape in the clinic: many victims still not informed?

In the Bielefeld rape scandal, according to research by contrasts and the “Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger” probably still many women don’t realize that they were victims. This applies to women who the doctor is said to have abused outside the clinic.

By Simone Brannahl, Susett Kleine and Lisa Wandt, rbb

Sonja M. and Jasmin G. (names changed) were patients at the Evangelische Bethel-Klinikum in Bielefeld at the end of 2019, housed in one room. What they found out only this year, more than two years later, shakes them deeply: they were both drugged and raped several times by an assistant doctor. They are victims of one of the largest series of rapes in Germany, which has occupied the judiciary and the public for more than two years. “It makes you extremely angry that they didn’t act,” says Sonja M. to the ARD political magazine contrasts.

Prosecutor Bielefeld did not want to inform victims

Between February 2019 and April 2020, assistant doctor Philipp G. was able to drug and rape around 30 patients at the Bethel Clinic in Bielefeld. He filmed his actions with his cell phone. Philipp G. was only arrested in autumn 2020 when the investigators found a hard drive with videos and a list of women’s names in his apartment. When he took his own life in custody a short time later, the Bielefeld public prosecutor’s office dropped the investigation and decided not to inform many of the women affected about their rape.

Did the perpetrator infect victims with a dangerous sexually transmitted disease?

And that, although the autopsy report said: G. had sexually transmitted diseases, including the so-called “Mycoplasma genitalium”. This disease is suspected of causing premature birth and infertility if left untreated. The victims are still outraged today: “I blame the Bielefeld public prosecutor’s office because if they had informed me earlier, I would not have had all this pain for almost two years,” says Jasmin K. contrasts.

She suffers from the same sexually transmitted diseases that were found in the perpetrator Philipp G. after the autopsy. She has multiple cysts on her uterus that may need to be removed completely. She also owes the fact that she has now been informed to the former North Rhine-Westphalia Minister of Justice Peter Biesenbach (CDU). Because he decided to open the case again and hand it over to the Duisburg public prosecutor.

Minister of Justice: “Not informing those affected was wrong”

An extremely unusual occurrence. “The decision not to inform those affected was wrong from the start. And when the venereal disease was discovered, it was even evidently illegal. Those affected had a right to be informed,” says Biesenbach in an exclusive interview With contrasts. After a complaint from the lawyers of those affected, the higher-level public prosecutor’s office in Hamm had previously decided to drop the investigation.

“Absurd arguments of the Attorney General”

Peter Biesenbach and his ministry intervened as the supreme employer. According to Biesenbach, the impression was created that the Attorney General might have decided too early on a position. “And then there were arguments that were absurd from the point of view of the criminal justice department. And so the suspicion arose that perhaps not all investigative approaches and not all known facts were objectively weighed against each other,” says Biesenbach.

In order to maintain the objectivity of the public prosecutor’s office, he then gave the case to Duisburg at the end of September 2021. Investigations are also being carried out against those responsible for the clinic. The Bethel Clinic shared this with them contrasts-Request with the fact that since the procedure became known, one has been cooperating fully with the authorities. The top priority would be to help the victims, for which a support fund had been set up, among other things.

29 women informed about rape in clinic

The now investigating public prosecutor’s office in Duisburg confirms this contrasts, In the meantime, all of the 29 women have been informed, some of whom were put under anesthesia and raped several times by Philipp G. in the Bethel Clinic. However, this may not mean that all women who have been sexually abused by Philipp G. are informed. Because he is said to have acted similarly in his private environment.

According to internal notes by the investigators, the contrasts and the “Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger”, decrypted video files of the perpetrator indicate that he has been sedating women in order to perform sexual acts on them since 2014. According to the files, the earlier investigating authorities found files with women’s personal documents, photos and videos of sexual assaults.

Three-digit number of victims?

The number of victims between 2014 and 2019 is assumed to be in the three-digit range in the internal notes; the perpetrator is said to have kept a list of 80 different women’s names since 2013. The files and names were already available to the public prosecutor’s office in Bielefeld, but apparently they are only now being comprehensively evaluated since the public prosecutor’s office in Duisburg began investigating – that is, for about a year.

When asked about the current status of the investigation, the Duisburg public prosecutor’s office replied: “The examination of whether the deceased committed crimes outside of the hospital is still ongoing. It is therefore currently unclear whether and, if so, how many other potentially injured persons/ there are victims.” So it stands to reason that there are still numerous victims of the serial rapist who do not know that they have been affected.