Teacher accused

Pupils abused: “Wanted to appear as a savior”

The ex-teacher does not want to be photographed himself. He hoarded nude photos of his pupils.

(Bild: Monika König-Krisper, Krone KREATIV)

With the help of a fake account, a Styrian religion teacher posed as a girl for several years and demanded videos and pictures of his naked pupils in extremely private poses and situations. The 40-year-old is now on trial. 

"As a public prosecutor and judge, you are used to judging facts outside the norm and looking into the deepest abysses of human souls. However, this goes beyond the norm in every respect," began public prosecutor Hansjörg Bacher in his plea at the Graz Regional Criminal Court on Thursday.

Numerous pupils affected
Sitting next to him is a now 40-year-old former religion and history teacher who had only one thing on his mind: to obtain pictures and videos of numerous of his pupils, mainly boys, showing them naked in extremely private poses and situations, to hoard them and take sexual pleasure in them. Bacher: "In order to achieve this, he fraudulently and disgustingly gained their trust." 

He achieved this in the following way, as the accused, now a truck driver, himself recounts: "There was a girl at the school next door who sent naked pictures of herself. One of my pupils also sent her some. I then created an account with the name 'Laura' and wrote to him because I wanted to know if he would send me some too." And sure enough, the hoped-for files arrived. And so the madness took its course ...

As a public prosecutor and judge, you are used to judging facts outside the norm and looking into the deepest abysses of human souls. But this one goes beyond the norm in every respect.

Staatsanwalt Hansjörg Bacher

Close relationship with pupils
The teacher says that he has been working at the school since 2009 and has developed a sexual affection for boys in particular in the course of working closely with the pupils. "But only with those over 14. I only wrote to one of them the day after his 14th birthday," he says, almost a little proudly. "I wasn't officially a guidance counselor, but I had a very close relationship with many of them."

Prosecutor Hansjörg Bacher elaborates: "The pupils trusted you so much that they came to him when they were lovesick or had bad grades. He comforted them in the Geo-Kammerl, sat them on his lap and stroked their backs." He was even privately invited to some parents' homes and enjoyed some quality time by the pool.

Had pupils under control
However, he had one teenager in particular - let's call him Martin. "He was really obsessed with him," says Bacher and recounts a nightmare come true: the boy came to him and confessed his infatuation with a girl. His guidance counselor promised to set them up. From then on, he had the pupil completely under his control, telling him all sorts of things he should do to win over his beloved.

He told him when to be home, what to wear and what to do and when. They wrote back and forth throughout the day and the perpetrator put the teenager under constant pressure for years. The teacher pretended to be in contact with the girl, but she doubted his sexual innocence. In the course of this, according to the boy's statements, the teacher assaulted him several times in the geo-chamber. When Martin began to cry at one point, the accused simply said that he shouldn't behave like that, "Jana wants it that way". And so Martin put up with everything.  

33,000 euros invested in nude pictures
Martin's younger brother also came into his crosshairs. He communicated with him, as with the other victims, via the fake account in which he pretended to be "Laura". "The account was well known at school, some people even sent me contact requests because they knew they would get vouchers for the pictures. I added it all up and spent around 33,000 euros on it."

When his own students came to him and told him that they were being blackmailed by a "Laura" - if some of them didn't want to send anything more, he threatened to publish the files - he promised to help them. He convinced them that Laura was a drug addict and that he had given her his cancer medication for 20,000 euros so that she would give up. In return, "Laura" wrote to the victims saying that her great teacher had sorted everything out and that they should now be especially kind to him because he was now suffering great pain because of her. 

Like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. What you did was incredibly damaging, especially for all the teachers!

Die beisitzende Richterin Barbara Schwarz

The accused confessed
For the most part, the accused has confessed, but he does not claim to have abused underage pupils, nor did he attack anyone, as one victim claims: "This is a tit-for-tat because I did all this." "Why all this?" the presiding judge Julia Riffel wants to know from him.

"There are several reasons. I had a sexual interest in them and wanted to feel the thrill of how far they would go. And yes, I also wanted to be the great savior and protector." "Like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. What you did was incredibly damaging, especially to all the teachers!" The trial is scheduled to last three days.