A German court has sentenced a man and his wife for sexual assault against their son.
The German court handed down the lengthy jail sentence to the couple for repeated sexual assault against their young son and selling him to paedophiles online for more than two years.
The boy’s mother Berrin Taha was sentenced to 12 and half years in prison while her husband Christian Lais who is the boy’s step-father was sentenced to 12 years and preventive detention thereafter.
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Christian Lais whom the boy called “papa” already had a previous conviction for child abuse, which made prosecutors raise questions regarding why he was allowed to live in a home with a child present.
The court discovered that the unemployed couple had carried out repeated sexual assault on the boy and pimped him on the darknet (illegal and hidden internet sites) between May 2015 and August 2017.
Judge Stefan Buergelin convicted the couple of rape, aggravated sexual assault of children, forced prostitution and distribution of child pornography.
The court also ordered the couple to pay compensation of 42,500 Euros ($49,200) in damages to the boy as well as another victim, a girl.
Prosecutors had hoped for a stiffer penalty against the couple, 14 years and six months for Taha and 13 years and six months for Lais.
An accomplice, a Spanish paedophile named Javier Gonzalez Diaz, was also sentenced by the court to 10 years in prison for repeated sexual assault against the young boy after paying the parents.
The Spanish paedophile was also ordered to pay 18,000 Euros in compensation to the young victim who is now 10 years old.
An anonymous tip off to the police in September 2017 started the case and led to the arrest of eight other people who have been charged with belonging to an online paedophile ring.
During the trial Lais admitted on the witness stand to the assaults on the boy while making serious accusations against the child’s 48-year-old mother, who also confessed to the crimes but remained largely silent about any possible motive.
The couple had charged several thousand euros (dollars) for each instance of abuse, filmed the acts and posted them on the darknet.