A German woman and her partner have been convicted and sentenced to years in prison for repeatedly raping the woman’s young son and selling him for sex on the dark net.
The woman was sentenced to 12 and a half years for rape, sexual abuse and forced prostitution after selling her son to pedophiles.
The court Freiburg also jailed her partner, the boy’s stepfather and convicted pedophile, for 12 years along with a preventative detention order.
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The boy was nine years old when the trial began in June in a case that has horrified the country and raised questions about its child protection services in Germany.
The shocking details of the case, the worst of its kind in German criminal history, have triggered calls for an overhaul of Germany’s child welfare facilities.
Questions need answering like why there no attempt made to prevent the boy from living in the same house as a convicted pedophile.
BBC reports: The German nationals, 48 and 39 years old, had sexually abused the boy themselves for at least two years.
The dark net is an internet area beyond the reach of mainstream search engines.
On Monday, the court jailed a Spanish man for 10 years for sexually abusing the boy repeatedly.
Five other men have also been prosecuted in connection with the abuse.
The couple were found guilty of rape, aggravated sexual assault of children, forced prostitution and distribution of child pornography.
The boy is now living with foster parents.
The couple must now pay €42,500 (£38,000; $49,200) in damages to the boy and to a three-year-old girl, who was also abused by them.
What happened to the boy, who is now aged 10, shocked even experienced investigators, reports the BBC’s Jenny Hill in Berlin.
Prosecutors say the boy was subjected to more than 60 serious sex attacks, many of which were filmed.
The case has horrified Germany, not least because the authorities – who knew that the mother’s partner was a convicted paedophile – missed opportunities to rescue the boy, our correspondent says.
On Tuesday the judge told the boy’s mother that she had carried out one of the most brutal sexual attacks.
The trial has also raised concerns that officials might sometimes wrongly presume that a woman is incapable of abusing her own child.
