Christina Block & Gerhard Delling: Charges after child abduction

No one should see the children. When a Citroën DS7 SUV sets off from the harbor in Grasten, Denmark, at 12:16 a.m. on January 1, 2024, speeding toward Germany, only three men dressed in black are visible from the outside. But also on board, crammed into the footwell and forcibly restrained, are a 13-year-old girl and her ten-year-old brother: Marie and Paul.

About half an hour earlier, shortly before midnight, the two had gone to the water with their father, Stephan Hensel, to watch the fireworks. What happened next fulfilled all the criteria of a nightmare.

A group of masked men pulls the father to the ground and beats him, while the children are dragged into the car. At this moment, Marie and Paul fear for his life – and for their own: The 13-year-old is afraid that her brother might suffocate in the confines of the footwell beneath her. This is what she later told investigators.

In the car, Marie hits one of the kidnappers with her smartphone. He rips it from her hand and throws it out the window. Police later find it on the zebra crossing in the center of Krusa, just a few hundred meters from the German border. According to the indictment, after this incident, the kidnappers put tape over her mouth to prevent her from speaking and tie her hands.

In the car, their brother Paul presses an emergency button that his father's partner had hung around his neck before leaving the house. Therefore, there is a recording of what can be heard inside all the way to the Danish border: snatches of English conversation, car noises. The kidnappers tell the children they are taking them to their mother. The children reply that they don't want to go there, but rather want to return to their father—whom they don't even know if he's still alive at that moment.

Paul and Marie's real names have been changed for their protection. Their kidnapping is the culmination of a custody dispute, like thousands of others in Germany. In this case, however, it has led to a serious crime.

When the trial begins on July 11 at the Hamburg Regional Court, the charges will be aggravated child abduction, severe abuse of a person in their care, and dangerous bodily harm. The main defendant is the children's mother, 52-year-old Christina Block, the daughter of the steakhouse chain's founder, Eugen Block.

Wealthy father: Christina Block and her father Eugen Block. The public prosecutor's office has closed the investigation against him in connection with the kidnapping.

Source: picture alliance /ABBfoto

Six other people are on trial with her, including an Israeli who is alleged to have been involved in the kidnapping, a former officer of the Hamburg State Office of Criminal Investigation, and Christina Block's partner, former ARD sports presenter Gerhard Delling. The public prosecutor's office has charged him with aiding and abetting. However, the regional court stated in its opening ruling that complicity is also a possibility.

Perhaps unusual in this case is that the children also want to testify publicly. The proceedings are being held before the Youth Protection Chamber. It is important to his client that the audience is not excluded, says Steffen Hörning, a well-known Göttingen victim advocate who is representing the interests of Marie, now 14, in this trial: "She wants to tell what she went through that night - and she wants everyone to hear what was done to her." Hörning believes this will also be an important building block for Marie's processing of the horrific events of New Year's Eve.

But if the accusation is true: What drives a mother to order such an act, to subject her children to all this - and to believe that she will get away with it in the end?

Christina Block and Stephan Hensel married in 2005. They had four children – the youngest, Paul, in 2013. After their divorce in 2018, they initially shared custody and also decided on their children's residency together. The father moved to Denmark to be with his new partner, while the children spent most of their time with their mother in Hamburg.

From happier times: Christina Block and Stephan Hensel with their children at a celebration in 2011.

Source: IMAGO / Eventpress

In July 2021, however, the eldest daughter moved in with her father of her own volition. A month later, after a weekend with him in Denmark, he did not bring the two younger children back to Hamburg, contrary to the agreement. Marie was afraid of her mother and did not want to return; the children reported their mother's domineering behavior and even violence, especially toward the youngest son. "Until the facts are clarified," Stephan Hensel wrote to his ex-wife, "the children would stay with him in Denmark."

But it does not take much imagination to imagine that the mother feels it is a great injustice.

In October 2021, the Hanseatic Higher Regional Court granted the mother sole custody of the children. Two years later, the Hamburg Public Prosecutor's Office filed charges against the father and his new wife for abducting minors. However, the Danish authorities failed to implement the German rulings, arguing that it would be better for the children to stay with their father.

Christina Block is unwilling to accept this – at least, that's what the prosecution assumes in its indictment. As early as early 2023, almost a year before the kidnapping, she decided to bring the children back on her own – even by force if necessary. According to the indictment, Andreas C., a lawyer, longtime confidant of the Block family, and chairman of the supervisory board of the family-owned Elysée Hotel Group, played a key role. According to investigators, they had established contacts with an Israeli security company.

Starting in February 2023, unusual guests will regularly stay at the Grand Elysée on Rothenbaumchaussee, the five-star hotel near Dammtor station. They appear in the booking system as "George Smith," "Doris White," "George Blue," or "Albert Green"—but according to investigators, they are actually Israelis who will meticulously prepare the kidnapping of the two children from Denmark over the next few months.

The conditions of their stay are certainly extremely generous. Accommodation, minibar, room service, a total of €221,710.70: everything is on the house. For the prosecutors, this is proof of why the group is staying in Hamburg—and at whose request.

On New Year's Eve 2023, at 8:06 p.m., the group sets off from the Grand Elysée towards Denmark in two vehicles, a Citroën DS7 and a Mercedes.

At about this time, the ball at the hotel begins, where Christina Block and Gerhard Delling want to celebrate the New Year.

After the attack at the port of Grasten, the kidnappers took the children on foot through a wooded area across the border into Germany. But Marie and Paul resisted. The boy pressed the emergency button a total of eight times. Marie clung to a tree. They weren't mean to children, the kidnappers explained. But they could also kill them if they disobeyed. That's what Marie and Paul later told the police.

On the German side, a Fiat Ducato camper van awaits the perpetrators. They take the children to a farm in Baden-Württemberg, where they deceive the owners into believing they rescued the boy and girl from their pedophile father with the help of the police. The mother takes the train to southern Germany on New Year's Day. When the children see her again the next day, they explain to her that they want to return to their father.

Or could it have been different? Is it possible that she, Christina Block, wasn't behind the kidnapping?

In any case, she herself denies any involvement in the kidnapping – and presents a different version to the police in a written statement: Her mother gave the order without any consultation. As a grandmother, she couldn't bear to be separated from her grandchildren for such a long time. He only learned of the kidnapping on New Year's morning.

So it was supposed to have been grandma.

However, the grandmother can no longer defend herself against this accusation. She died in July 2023, at the age of 82.

However, investigators don't believe this version. The fact that the perpetrators carried out the kidnapping single-handedly six months after the client's death seems unrealistic to them. Furthermore, there is no indication that Christa Block had any contact with the Israeli company.

The prosecution finds more credible what Christina Block spontaneously said when the police showed up at her door after returning with the children to Hamburg on January 3, 2023. She couldn't have taken the children away from anyone, after all, she had custody. She is said to have literally said: "I'm doing a repatriation, he's doing a kidnapping."

From their perspective, that would at least be understandable. Investigators consider the sentence a partial confession.

The investigators also consider a message on her partner's cell phone, which they attribute to her, to be incriminating.

Accused of aiding and abetting: Sports presenter Gerhard Delling allegedly assisted his partner in the kidnapping of the children. He himself denies the allegations.

Source: Marcus Brandt/dpa

“Yes, everything was right,” she wrote to Gerhard Delling at 1:35 p.m. on New Year’s Day, “will they hate me?”

Former ARD football expert Delling also claims he only learned of the kidnapping on New Year's Day 2024. However, according to the indictment, messages on his smartphone show that the 66-year-old had been in contact with the Israeli coordinator weeks earlier. Delling is also said to have organized his partner's trip to see the children. However, he also denies any involvement. His lawyer, David Rieks, calls the allegations "factually and legally incorrect." "We will vigorously and comprehensively oppose them."

In any case, Christina Block has not achieved her goal of living with her children again. On January 5, 2024, the Hanseatic Higher Regional Court granted the father, Stephan Hensel, the right to determine the place of residence and raise Paul and Marie in a temporary injunction. The same day, the police brought them back to him. In Denmark, a court granted him sole custody. Christina Block's constitutional complaint, however, failed before the Federal Constitutional Court in May.

But to this day, it is the children who are the ones who suffer the most damage.

Marie, now 14, suffers from paranoia and insomnia and is receiving therapeutic treatment. Eleven-year-old Paul is afraid of strange men and no longer dares to sleep alone. To this day, their lives are dominated by the fear that everything could happen again.

"This is a serious crime. All those who were demonstrably involved must be held accountable," says Marie's lawyer, experienced victim rights expert Steffen Hörning. "That is the children's wish."