A respected German judge has been convicted and is facing jail after the police seized explicit pornographic footage of children which he obtained from criminal proceedings and distributed on the Darknet.

The spokesperson for the Augsburg Regional Court, Claus Patzel, 59, who also served as chairman of the Munich Higher Regional Court since 2019, was convicted after the police found over 4.000 pornographic images and videos of children found in his possession.

Local media reported that Patzel was a father of two adult daughters and enjoyed hiking, while he allegedly took his professional obligations very seriously.

In a 2019 interview for local media Merkur, Patzel, who also had a black belt in Jiu-Jitsu, said: “This is a responsible task because we review the judgments of the regional courts and are often the last resort.”

However, Patzel caught the authorities’ attention after the public prosecutor’s office in the German town of Bamberg received a report and started an investigation against him in May 2020.

According to Bild, the files which Patzel obtained through criminal cases from the court and mostly included underaged girls had been distributed on a platform on the Darknet since 2019.

IT forensics investigators later managed to seize several thousand pornographic files of children from his laptop and filed a complaint to the Augsburg District Court on 21st June 2021.

Since Patzel had already resigned from his position before the verdict and had given up his pension claims, the judges significantly reduced the amount of his fine and he was charged with 150 -day instalments of EUR 30 (GBP 25).

According to the court ruling, the fine became legally binding on 8th July, however, he is still facing a prison sentence of at least one year, which is yet to be discussed.

Senior Public Prosecutor and head of the Center for Combating Child Pornography and Sexual Abuse on the Internet, Thomas Goger, told Bild: “Claus Patzel is legally convicted in six cases of distributing and possessing child pornography.”

Goger added: “This trial also proves that child pornography offenders come from all spheres of life. But it also shows that nobody can be certain that they are permanently safe from exposure in the supposed anonymity of the Darknet.”