Christina Block
Daughter describes kidnapping drama on New Year’s Eve
Christina Block
© Georg Wendt / Picture Alliance
It’s a custody dispute that has now reached an unexpected level of escalation: Hamburg steakhouse heiress Christina Block and her ex-husband Stephan Hensel are fighting over their children. A dispute that reaches its sad climax on New Year’s Eve with the kidnapping of the former couple’s two youngest children. Now the 13-year-old daughter describes for the first time how she and her brother experienced what happened.
Christina Block’s youngest daughter has the floor
The weekly newspaper “Zeit” has contacted Stephan Hensel. But he’s not the only one willing to talk about what happened at the turn of the year. The two children, who must have endured incredible fears that night, are also waiting for reporter Anne Kunze. Christina Block’s ex-husband lives in a secret location in Denmark with the two youngest and the oldest, a 17-year-old. Another 15-year-old daughter is with her mother in Hamburg.
As we learn, Hensel lives in a simple apartment with his second wife Astrid, their eight-year-old child and the children from his relationship with Christina Block who live with him. Two tables, two sofas, Lego bricks on the tiled floor,” Kunze describes her impressions. “That’s how you live on the run,” said Hensel, commenting on the current living conditions. He surprises his guest, who actually wants to do the interview with him in private. “The children are allowed to be there; they have already had to testify several times.”
After the recent incidents, Danish authorities gave Hensel temporary custody of the two. He is therefore authorized to allow children to speak to the media – provided, of course, that they want to do so.
Bound and gagged: Daughter describes nightmare odyssey
The 13-year-old girl begins to speak. She and her brother were thrown on top of each other in the footwell of a car by the masked men. The vehicle crashed into a forest at a significantly high speed. There the children were taken out of the car and apparently had to continue on foot. The 10-year-old was carried for a time. Both children had hoods pulled over their faces. They were also tied up and gagged, reports the daughter. Her head was pushed down. One of the perpetrators talked to her and assured her that everything would be fine. They would come to their mother.
The girl reports that the two children were searched for GPS trackers. A chain was even torn from her neck. Another vehicle was waiting for them in a parking lot. Accompanied by masked people, they then traveled for several hours with a few stops. The destination was apparently only reached on the afternoon of January 1st – a farm where they would have had to stay in an unlocked room. The 13-year-old remembers that snatches of conversation in English reached her. The mention of the number 15,000 stuck in her mind.
The following day, Christina Block and her older sister, who lived with her, appeared there. In the evening the youngest got into a car with the two of them. A masked man is behind the wheel. When she arrived in or near Hamburg – the girl is not sure – the vehicle was changed again. They got into a relative’s car and drove to the mother’s property.
Block’s lawyer speaks out
The investigators are now responsible for evaluating this report from the 13-year-old.
Meanwhile, Christina Block’s lawyer has commented on Hensel’s decision to let his daughter speak to the press about what happened: “Once again, Hensel, who has been charged by the Hamburg public prosecutor’s office with the abduction of the two children, is trying to publicly present the vulnerable, underage children in order to… “To give the public a better picture and to abuse the defenseless children to further unjustly discredit the child’s mother,” explains Otmar Kury to “Bild”.
The bitter custody battle in the Block case
Christina Block and Stephan Hensel married in 2005. Nine years later, the couple decided to separate. The divorce took place in 2018. A custody dispute over their youngest children has been raging between the two for years. Hensel moved to Denmark and kept his daughter and son with him after a visit. He claimed that it was her voluntary decision to live with her father in the future. The children have been in his care for two years, although a Hamburg court had temporarily transferred the right of residence to the mother.
Both German and Danish authorities are now investigating the events on New Year’s Eve.
Sources used: zeit.de, bild.de