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Claudio Meier
A 34-year-old supervisor is said to have sexually assaulted a girl (5) at a private school in Winterthur. Specifically: in May and June 2019, the man took the girl to a school gym, exposed himself in front of her, and asked her to massage her vulva. However, she refused. It is said that there were two more incidents with the man.
Now the man appeared in Winterthur district court and was acquitted, as reported by the “Landbote” (Abo). Reason: massive errors in the process. The case started because the girl made a casual comment to her mother.
Policewoman interrogated too suggestive
The girl always referred to the perpetrator by the same name, although there was only one supervisor with a similar name on the school’s staff roster. Parents showed their daughter photos of a school yearbook clerk to verify that he was actually the culprit. They finally denounced the man.
However, the child protection department of the canton police apparently made mistakes in the survey. The police officer asked the girl the name she had originally told her parents, the defense attorney said in court, according to the “Landbote.” At the same time, the police told the girl the man’s real name. “The policewoman did not even ask what the person was like, but established a direct connection with my client.”
The court believes that girls
Furthermore, by asking the girl several times, the policewoman suggested that her initial answers were wrong. Which also came to light in the process: the mother had repeatedly asked her daughter to tell everything because otherwise she would scold her.
Although the defendant engaged in contradictory statements, the judge could not challenge them. The court believed the girl, but not enough to convict her. The judge, according to the “Landbote”: “The statements only show that the girl has observed a sexual assault,” says the judge. No more information can be created based on your statements. “You cannot just fill in the gaps in the girl’s stories with stories from her parents,” the verdict reads. (neo)
