Dirk Peter · Stuttgart, Germany
That is how long he has gone without seeing his son. In ten years of court files there is not one allegation that concerns the child.
666 documents, 5,793 pages, 30 sets of court proceedings — dated, redacted and verifiable one by one.
Thirty sets of proceedings, ten years, one child who no longer sees his father. The beginning is not a drama but a two-sentence administrative matter — and a decision that did not end it but set it in stone.
What was decided
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What was never said
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Ten years of files, two columns. On the left, what was said about the relationship between father and son. On the right, what was said about the father. Both columns come from the same offices: the youth welfare office (Jugendamt), the child’s guardian ad litem, the court-appointed expert, the court itself.
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Not one allegation concerns how he treated his son. All of them concern how he spoke to the adults.
On the record — and unchallenged
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The hearing note in full The passage in the written submission
When a father is no longer allowed to see his child, you expect allegations. The file holds none. Five findings that appear nowhere in it — and their absence is the actual story.
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Each one comes from the court file or from his own mailbox. Each one is one click away from its source document.
For twenty years Dirk Peter investigated security incidents inside large companies: secure the evidence, build a timeline, name who decided what and when. When his own life became the incident, he did the same thing.
The result is not an indictment but a body of evidence: 666 documents from 30 sets of proceedings, 5,793 pages, every item with a verifiable date. The mother’s name has been removed; of the parents' dates of birth only the year remains. Courts, case numbers and public officials are named.
One
15 May 2021. A child kissing his father, and a small hand on his cheek. There are hundreds of pictures like this one.
Two
Then it dissolves. Not all at once — from below, day by day, until all that is left is what has run down.
Three
What remains has the shape of a gap. In ten years of files there is not one allegation that concerns the child.
Four
1,596 lights. One for each day he has not seen his son. They can be counted.
Five
The days turn into paper. 5,793 pages across 30 sets of proceedings. Every page a step in which something was decided about a child.
Six
And inside the file is the one it was about all along.
A child rejects one parent without the file naming any reason for it in that parent’s behavior. This site relies on no diagnosis and no syndrome, only on what the documents say: contact visits that did not happen, cooperation that did not come, dates and appointments.
That this is a pattern and not a run of bad luck is clear from Strasbourg. The European Court of Human Rights has repeatedly found Germany in violation of Article 8 of the Convention for failing to enforce contact — Elsholz 2000, Sahin and Sommerfeld 2003, Görgülü 2004, Anayo 2010. Most recently on 24 October 2023 in Sioud v. Germany (no. 48698/21): a German appellate court excluded a father’s contact for eight months because the child rejected him — without hearing the child again and without obtaining an expert report. The Court found a violation of Article 8.
Strasbourg · —
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Ludwigsburg · this case
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Three weeks later, on 17 November 2023, the German Federal Constitutional Court held in 1 BvR 1076/23 that a court may not change where a child lives on the sole basis of “parental alienation”: there is no empirical evidence for parental manipulation as an explanation of a child’s rejection, nor for the effectiveness of removing the child from the household. That ruling is about such a removal. This case is not. What has been applied for here is the mildest measure available, and one never yet tried: a supervised resumption of contact.
The pattern repeats itself: the disadvantaged parent complains, becomes inconvenient in the process, and from that moment the case is no longer about the child but about the parent. A parent who sees the bond with their child under threat gets loud. That is a reaction, not a character trait. In proceedings like these it is turned into one.
In German professional usage such cases are called hochstrittig — “high-conflict”. The word spreads responsibility evenly across two parents and leaves open what is at stake. A more accurate term would be high-vulnerability proceedings — because it names who gets hurt in them: the child, and the parent who loses the child.
Anyone who wants to write about this will find a case documented without gaps over ten years — and someone to talk to who does not need the technical terms explained to him.
The contradictions are left standing here, because they are part of the story.
First IT projects. Four years later his own company, Pixelpentagon.
Founded two companies in Florida, both with six-figure annual revenue. Wound up in 2015 over his visa.
Finn is born. Paternity had been acknowledged before the birth.
Head of Cyber Security: built a department, led teams, ran emergency response during ransomware attacks.
Certificate course as a guardian ad litem, written exam passed. He learned what the professionals deciding about him are supposed to know.
The book comes out. It changes nothing in the proceedings.
Without means. Freelancing, fighting to stay afloat — while the child support order runs on unchanged.
Today he works as a guardian ad litem for children in family proceedings — vbdp.de
What you need for a story is ready. If something is missing, one email is enough.
The chronicle releases every document in the original. Because it concerns pending and concluded family proceedings, this is not an open download: you record who is inspecting the file and receive access by email. It then applies to all documents. The documents are German originals.
Usually a reply the same day, within 24 hours at the latest. Interviews by phone, video call or in the studio, in German or English.
Finn has turned ten. He asked his father for a football shirt. Handing it over takes a court case.
If you want to write about it: the file is open.
