Neglect of Duty of Care (Case Study by Aaden Detectives)

The subject of Aaden Detective Agency Düsseldorf was a moderately well-known male pop star from Mönchengladbach who had a four-year-old daughter from a brief affair and shared custody with the mother. The mother, Ms. Herzog from Viersen, was well aware of the lifestyle of the subject and had serious doubts that the father would have time to care for the child alongside concerts and press commitments – and even if he did, she questioned whether an environment in the show business world, where, according to Ms. Herzog, alcohol flows freely and cocaine is consumed in quantities, was suitable for her daughter. Consequently, the concerned mother commissioned our Düsseldorf private detectives to observe the Mönchengladbach-based pop star while he exercised his custody, in order to determine how he cared for the daughter and what influences the child was exposed to.

Friday: An Unusual Babysitter

On the first weekend after the Aaden Detective Agency Düsseldorf was commissioned, the subject collected the daughter Friday afternoon from Ms. Herzog in Viersen and drove with the child to his residence in Mönchengladbach. Shortly afterward, the daughter was seen in the company of an unknown man, and both went out for ice cream. Meanwhile, the pop star left in a conspicuous white vehicle with an unknown female companion and headed to an event hall in the Rhineland, where he was scheduled to perform that evening. As observing the subject in the crowd without backstage access would have been very difficult, our Düsseldorf detectives focused on the daughter and her caregiver.

The unknown male companion appeared more like a bodyguard than a nanny but behaved appropriately, and during observation, the child seemed comfortable with him. They stayed at a playground until just before 7:00 p.m. before returning home, where they remained until the next morning. The pop star was not observed by our Düsseldorf detectives until the afternoon after his performance, when he returned home accompanied by a different female companion than the night before.

Saturday: Taking the Child to a Bar While Dad Parties

On Saturday midday and afternoon, the bodyguard-nanny and Ms. Herzog’s daughter took walks, revisited the playground, and went to a shopping center, purchasing nothing – always in pairs and without the father, who went out in the evening with his female companion for dinner and later to a venue in Cologne for a performance. Meanwhile, our Düsseldorf detectives observed the babysitter entering a bar with the child, seating her on a stool while he socialized with people from a questionable background, drinking beer and whiskey. The child was exposed to this environment deep into the night, occasionally resting her head on her caregiver but being repeatedly woken as he moved about for drinks or to use a pinball machine.

At the subject’s residence in Mönchengladbach, our detectives noted lively activity from late evening, as a party crowd, primarily musicians and so-called groupies, celebrated noisily with open windows and doors. One of our Düsseldorf private detectives speculated that the child’s time in the bar might have been intended as a misguided protective measure to shield her from the even less suitable environment at the residence. After the late bar closure, the exhausted, sleeping child was carried by the nanny-bodyguard to a pension, where they stayed overnight, while the pop star’s villa remained the site of celebrations until dawn.

Sunday: Sobering Up into the Afternoon

From around 11:00 a.m., a so-called “walk of shame” began at the house, with lightly dressed partygoers making their way home. As early as 9:00 a.m., staff had arrived to clean up and usher out one guest after another. The daughter of the client of our Düsseldorf detectives and her minder did not return until early afternoon and thus missed by far the largest part of the guests – presumably this had been planned by the target person. The pop star first reappeared at around 4:30 p.m.: apparently just awakened, the child’s father came out in front of the house with disheveled hair, a cigarette at the corner of his mouth, and his shirt open, accepted a kiss from a blonde, and sent her off with a slap on the backside. A short time later, he was sitting in his white car with his daughter and drove toward Viersen, where he dropped the child off with the client of Aaden Detective Agency Düsseldorf.

Alcohol and Drugs: Negative Environment in Childcare

Mrs. Herzog was understandably shocked by the findings from the previous investigations. Above all, the fact that a complete stranger was looking after her daughter while the father apparently did not care at all drew lines of anger across her face. She arranged a second surveillance block with Aaden Commercial Detective Agency Düsseldorf for the weekend after next, when the daughter would again be staying with the father. Unfortunately, she then took a step that seriously endangered the further investigation, because her anger was so great that she confronted the father with her knowledge under the pretext that a friend had told her about the excesses in the Mönchengladbach villa and also about the fact that the father was not personally looking after the daughter at all but had assigned one of his “gorillas” to do it. Whether the target person would believe the story about the talkative friend seemed highly doubtful to our private detectives in Mönchengladbach when the observation resumed, which is why a personnel reinforcement of the detective team was decided upon.

Fortunately, no increased sensitivity on the part of the target person could be detected during the renewed observations. After being picked up in Viersen, the pop star drove straight home without looking around conspicuously often or carrying out any control measures such as turning around. On Friday evening, the target person went out, first to a restaurant and then to a nightclub until the early hours of the morning. Until Saturday evening, neither the daughter nor the nanny-bodyguard could be seen; only when the target person of our Düsseldorf private detective agency was on the way to a performance did the little girl appear accompanied by the father and follow him backstage. Since one of the security staff members is well known to one of our detectives, he was able to go behind the stage for a quarter of an hour and observe the company while the concert was already in progress and the target person was trying to entertain his audience. The investigator found the child sitting on the knee of the nanny-bodyguard amid a group of dubious, drinking men and women. On the table were “lines,” white powder (presumably cocaine) consumed nasally.

Detectives Calm the Angry Mother

As soon as the investigator left the backstage area, he consulted with his colleagues and with the operations management of Aaden Commercial Detective Agency Düsseldorf; the consensus was to inform Mrs. Herzog from Viersen immediately about the situation. The client asked our private investigators to bring the child to her immediately from the venue, but we had to reject this request due to our lack of legal authority. Mrs. Herzog then wanted to call the police so that her daughter would be brought to her immediately, but from the perspective of de-escalation and safeguarding the child’s welfare (possible trauma as a result of a violent removal by police officers), the detectives advised her to come personally and pick up the child as the mother and under the protection of the three investigators deployed. Mrs. Herzog followed the advice and immediately went to the scene, where she “told off” a security employee who tried to stop her from entering so forcefully that he cowered meekly. Inside, she met with little resistance; only the nanny-bodyguard made an effort to protest, but fell silent after a sharp-tongued speech from the angry mother. The father, who in all likelihood had been informed about the backstage events, made no effort to leave his audience and set his private affairs straight.

Mrs. Herzog took the child home and informed the father by text message that he could now only see the daughter at the mother’s home in Viersen and was no longer allowed to take her to his own home. If he had any objection to this, Mrs. Herzog would be happy to introduce him to our detectives for Mönchengladbach. To this day, seven weeks later, the mother has not heard anything more from this pop star.

*Notice*

Note: For reasons of discretion and data protection, the locations of operations and certain personal details have been modified without altering the substance of the actual events.

*Note: All assignments of Aaden Commercial Detective Agency Düsseldorf are handled by our operations management in Düsseldorf. We have a network of qualified, vetted investigators who can be deployed on site for you within a short time.