Overview
- Three Jugendamt employees are set to testify on Thursday about the custody prehistory, agency warnings, and their handling of contact with the children.
- One youth-welfare worker who visited the children at their mother’s home after the abduction was briefly investigated following the daughter’s complaint, but prosecutors closed the case for lack of evidence.
- Crown witness David Barkay is slated to continue testifying on January 19, asserting the mother and a family lawyer commissioned the operation and provided cash, which Block denies.
- Youth-welfare records show staff warned in 2022 of deliberate alienation by the father and advised court-ordered protection, yet a Danish court in March 2023 kept the children with him while granting the mother a 14‑day visitation right.
- Four days after the New Year’s transfer the children were returned to Denmark, and the Hamburg Higher Regional Court awarded the father sole custody in January 2024, with no ongoing contact reported between the mother and children.