Two men sexually assaulted dozens of children at campsite over more than 10 years

Case has horrified Germany and shone light on country's appalling protection failings

Andreas V and Mario S, with solicitor, in court (Screengrab / DW)

A pair of "abhorrent, monstrous and repugnant" men who admitted to sexually abusing dozens of girls at a campsite in Germany have been jailed after a case that has both horrified the country and shone a light on its child protection failings.

Identified only as Andreas V and Mario S, they told Detmold regional court they had carried out hundreds of offences in a period stretching more than a decade.

The pair lured their victims, aged from three to 14, to a caravan in the central town of Lügde where they photographed and videoed their crimes.

Although they admitted charges against 32 girls between 2008 and 2018, authorities said they suspected the real number of victims may run into the hundreds.

The case has caused particular outrage because 56-year-old Andreas V was a foster carer who had weekly visits from family liaison officers.

It also emerged that he had previously been investigated for abusing a four-year-old in 2002.

Many of his victims first met him through his foster daughter, the court heard.

His 34-year-old co-defendant was a neighbour.

The pair were jailed for 13 and 12 years respectively after an investigation was sparked when one victim told her mother about the abuse.

Sentencing, Judge Anke Grudda said it was “difficult to express what happened in words" and labelled the pair: "Abhorrent, monstrous and repugnant."

She said: “After ten days of trial the inability to truly understand the crimes remains. You both degraded 32 youth and children to objects of sexual desire, and in doing so, destroyed 32 childhoods."

A third defendant, 49-year-old Heiko V who was given a two-year suspended sentence in a separate trial for participating in the abuse online.

But the sentences do not bring an end to the fall out from the case.

The police investigation was marked by scandal after a suitcase of evidence, including film material, disappeared from an evidence room in January. Two officers now suspected of obstructing justice.

A separate investigation, meanwhile, found that “an unprecedented series of failures” on the part of authorities had allowed the abuse to go on.

Eight child protection officers are currently being probed over possible neglect of duty.