A 31-year-old man who worked as the head of a kindergarten goes on trial in the southern German town of Heilbronn on Monday, charged with repeatedly raping a young boy over a period of six years and making films of himself doing so.

The crimes are alleged to have taken place mostly in the man's apartment between 2012 and the start of 2018. The alleged victim was 6 years old when the sexual abuse began.

Police had already begun investigating the man at the start of 2016 for possessing and exchanging pornographic material involving children. His employer, the Evangelical Church in Germany, was, however, reportedly not informed of this until the summer of 2017, raising questions about police procedures.

The fact that the man then continued to work as kindergarten head until the start of 2018 has also prompted an inquiry within the church. So far, however, there have been no indications that children at the kindergarten were subjected to sexual abuse at the hands of the accused.

Read more: Australia child sex abuse study notes Catholic Church mandatory celibacy as cause

'Special bond of trust'

The German children's rights organization "Deutscher Kinderschutzbund" has called for protective procedures to be more rigorously observed.

"People have to completely abandon the idea that 'something like that can't happen with us'," the organization's vice president, Christian Zainhofer, told DPA news agency.

"There is, of course, a special bond of trust with a kindergarten teacher. If it is true that it took 15 months for the man's employer to be notified, that is a catastrophe," he added.

tj/rt (epd, dpa)

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