EHalf an hour before the verdict against him is announced, Philipp M., 53 years old, stands in front of the court in Lübeck on Wednesday and smokes a cigarette. You can see that the beefy man with close-cropped gray hair is unwell. M. used to represent the prosecution here as a public prosecutor, but now he is threatened with being found guilty as a sex offender. Shortly after nine o'clock, the presiding judge Helga von Lukowicz entered room 163 and sentenced M. to a suspended sentence of one year and six months for rape in conjunction with serious sexual abuse of a person under protection. If the judgment becomes final, M. will lose his civil servant status and thus his pension rights. He must bear the costs of the procedure.
His crime was described in detail in the indictment: On the night of March 27, 2019, the Lübeck public prosecutor Philipp M. climbed into his eight-year-old son's bed and sexually assaulted him. He reached into the boy's pajama pants and touched his genitals and also his anus. M. then pushed his penis into the boy's face and forcefully forced him to perform oral sex.
When his wife confronted him with the allegations the next morning, he had no memory of them. He drove to his office and reported himself to his superior. M. took sick leave and was later put into early retirement. His wife, the son's mother, divorced him.
Witness wants to remember similar incidents
M. claims he cannot remember what he did to his son. He does not claim to have been conscious during the crime. The defense argued that her client suffered from the sleep disorder sexsomnia. Those affected carry out sexual acts on themselves and others even when they are unconscious. When they wake up, they don't remember it.
On an earlier day of the trial at the end of January, a former partner supported the defense with her testimony. “When I heard about the allegations, I remembered similar situations in our relationship that went back around 20 years,” said the 42-year-old witness. They had sex several times during their relationship while Philipp M. was in a deep sleep. She called it “sexual intercourse while sleepwalking.” She never asked him about it. At the time, she lacked the “tool” to talk to him about it.
Judge von Lukowicz calls the testimony of the defense witness unbelievable in her reasons for the verdict. “In our opinion, the events described by the witness did not exist.” The way she reported dealing with the events was unrealistic. M. and his former girlfriend did not part on good terms, but after a separation the positive memories of the time they spent together often outweighed them. Maybe that's why Ms. M. wanted to help with her statement. The witness herself had said that she wanted to give the child an answer to the father's actions.
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