Woman judge 'ran sex ring that killed boy aged five'
By Hannah Cleaver in Berlin
(Filed: 01/03/2003)

A woman former lay judge in a youth court in Germany is thought to have headed a child abuse ring that murdered a five-year-old boy.

Police have arrested 12 men and women thought to have abused the dead boy, his friend, now aged seven, and an even younger girl and possibly other children.

The boy, named only as Pascal, was killed in September 2001, according to statements made to police by several of the arrested adults. His body has not been found and a search has been taking place in a quarry just over the border in France.

The abuse took place in the back room of a pub run by the former judge, named only as Christa W. The bar was a well-known meeting place for drug dealers and prostitutes. Some press reports suggest that Christa W took money from customers for access to the children.

She had legal custody of Pascal's friend when he was six, granted by a former colleague at the Youth Ministry who is now also under investigation.

He was removed from her care after complaining that she, her partner and his own mother and her boyfriend sexually abused him. It is thought that Pascal, whose home was 100 yards from the pub, was beaten while being abused, to keep him quiet.

But, say police, he was hit so hard that he died. The abusers panicked, put his body in a car, drove across the border and buried it.

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