swim bandage
Hempel abuse case: DSV wants to avert litigation
Triggered a broad discussion about abuse and violence in German sport: Jan Hempel. photo
© Bernd Weißbrod/dpa
The Jan Hempel case triggered a broad discussion about abuse and violence in German sport and how to come to terms with it. The German association wants an amicable solution, but does not want to pay any money.
The German Swimming Association wants to prevent a possible claim for damages by former world-class water jumper Jan Hempel.
One is in an “intensive exchange” with Hempel’s lawyer Thomas Summerer and is “trying to find an amicable solution for all parties and thus avert a lengthy legal dispute,” said the DSV at the request of the ARD.
Accordingly, the association submitted a “concrete offer” in order to find a solution “promptly”. The association leadership thus followed a recommendation of the independent review commission, which the DSV had set up in the course of the “Causa Hempel”.
Arbitrator solutions?
According to ARD information, the DSV has not yet made any proposals for specific compensation payments. An independent arbitrator should work out possible solutions. The DSV did not want to officially comment on these points. However, the association generally excludes compensation payments with reference to non-profit law.
According to his manager Oliver Hillebrecht, Hempel had set a deadline for the DSV in the dispute over compensation for pain and suffering in the millions because of years of abuse by his coach. If the DSV does not respond to the five different offers submitted with a serious answer by June 6th, it will go to court. According to ARD, Hillebrecht received the current offer from DSV on Monday. “We have to examine the offer,” said the lawyer.
In August last year, Hempel made public the allegations of sexual abuse against his coach Werner Langer, who died in 2001, in an ARD documentary entitled “Abused – Sexualized Violence in German Swimming”. Accordingly, Langer had passed from 1982 to 1996 at the Olympic silver medalist in Atlanta in 1996.
In the film, Hempel accused the DSV of knowing about the allegations in 1997 but not having done anything decisive. The case triggered a broad discussion about abuse and violence in German sport and how to deal with it.
ARD report