Story By:  Ana Marjanovic, Sub-Editor: Michael Leidig, Agency:  Newsflash

A Catholic priest has been sentenced to 12 years behind bars over 118 cases of sexual abuse including a girl as young as nine and even his own nieces.

The district court in Cologne, in the western German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, confirmed the priest’s sentence, who has been named only as Hans U., 70.

He was jailed for 12 years on Friday (27th May) after he was found guilty of abusing numerous children, forcing them to have intercourse with him and to perform oral sex on him as well as other sex acts.

The priest and his lawyer, named as Pantea Farahzadi, withdrew an appeal against the jail sentence, originally handed down in February.

The priest was found guilty of abusing young children for many years, with other victims coming forward during the trial.

He had initially been charged with sexually abusing his three underage nieces for years in the 1990s but numerous other vitims came forward during the trial.

One girl was abused while feeling homesick during a camp holiday.

Another victim was abused when the priest pretended to want to take care of her because her mother was an alcoholic.

The prosecution, in the end, revealed 118 acts committed against children.

Working as a hospital chaplain, he had gained the trust of one family, convincing them to allow him to provide “therapy” for their daughter, who was reportedly prone to anger.

But instead, he sexually abused her.

Despite allegations and rumours about Hans U. making their way to the Archdiocese of Cologne, he was reportedly allowed to be alone with children on numerous occasions.

The archdiocese even reportedly paid his legal fees after he was originally investigated.

That investigation was eventually dropped because the priest’s nieces initially withdrew their statements against him.

The Archdiocese of Cologne has denied any responsibility in the matter, with Archbishop Stefan Hesse, 55, quoted in local media as saying, while giving testimony during the trial: “We acted consistently.”

But during the trial, presiding judge Christoph Kaufmann reportedly displayed his irritation at the attitude of the Catholic authorities, according to German daily Bild, who have also reported that the 12-year sentence is one of the highest prison sentences ever handed down to a Catholic priest in Germany.

Judge Kaufmann reportedly asked the former church judge Guenter Assenmacher, 69, who was also called as a witness, why he had not conducted his own research to get to the bottom of the case.

Assenmacher reportedly replied that further investigations were not his job. He then repeatedly interspersed Latin phrases and terms into his statements, according to Bild.

Judge Kaufmann also read from a letter that Assenmacher had sent to a colleague in the archbishopric who had reminded him of the priest’s case.

The church judge had reportedly said at the time: “I locked the documents in the poison cabinet here and completely lost sight of them.”

At the beginning of the trial in November, the priest was not in custody but as the number of accusations against him grew during the court proceedings, the police arrested him in the courtroom, in January, taking him into custody.

Delivering his initial verdict in February, which lasted nearly three hours, judge Kaufmann labelled the defendant a “paedophile serial offender”.

The judge credited the statements from the numerous victims for finally putting Hans U. behind bars, with Kaufmann saying: “these are the heroines of the case.”