Facts
B. (born 1974) suffers from multiple physical and mental disabilities with a moderate intellectual disability and has been living in a work and residential group for people with perceptual disorders for many years. A. worked there from around 1995 as a caretaker, initially in B.'s group and later as a group leader in another group. From 2010 onwards, B. developed a special interest in A. and referred to him as her favorite caretaker.
A. is accused of having repeatedly taken B. out of her room at night and brought her to an on-call room between the beginning of 2014 and the end of July 2016, where he is said to have demanded sexual acts from her and performed them on her. B. is said to have allowed this, as due to her disability and dependence on caretaker A., she was unable to resist.
Considerations
The Federal Court finds that the existing relationship of dependence and power imbalance must be qualified as particularly pronounced and intense. Due to her impairments, B. is significantly restricted and dependent on the care and support of the care staff. Furthermore, she is massively inferior to A. in cognitive terms. From 2010 onwards, she referred to him as her favorite caretaker, which speaks for a special relationship of trust and a certain emotional dependence and affection.
Although, according to the expert opinion, B. is generally able to consent to physical closeness that she perceives as pleasant or to reciprocate it, and to reject unwanted closeness, this does not change her easy susceptibility to influence by A., which is primarily due to the dependence.
The Federal Court concludes that despite B.'s…