According to the charges, the 43-year-old educator praised the “girls”, wooed them with compliments, seduced them into dancing or doing somersaults and asked them to undress and reveal how lovely they are. He flirted with the children saying “You make me happy” to encourage them to have sex on the computer screen. “I’m in a naughty, dirty mood,” he promised them. Often, the unmatched partners then swapped to closed chats to continue the abuse in secret.

Court spokesman Tobias Gülich said on Monday that the man, who is alleged to have systematically searched for children on the net, taught at a school in Bonn during the day. According to the charges, the educator is said to have either made the girls show themselves naked and engage in sexual activities or they had to watch him have sex.

The man was able to operate on the internet for more than a year before American investigators “harvested” the IP address of his computer while uploading child porn. The federal crime office received a tip and the Bonn public prosecutor’s office was hot on the teacher’s heels.

However, the full extent of the abusive chat traffic only came to light after a house search in March 2018. Several electronic storage media and computers were seized. As well as recorded livechats, numerous child and youth pornographic texts and more than 400 porn videos were found. The teacher’s school was immediately informed and the man has been suspended ever since. Gülich said the 43-year-old man had not yet responded to the allegations. However, the evidence was compelling.

None of the abused girls will give evidence at the trial in Bonn. The victims cannot be identified. An expert was commissioned to determine the age of the chat partners.

(Original text: Ulrike Schödel. Translation: kc)