Custody: Falsified Caregiver Reports? | Case of Aaden Detective Agency Hamburg – Part 2

In Part 1 of this article, you received background information on the investigations carried out by Aaden Detective Agency Hamburg as well as a description of the initial steps of our inquiry. The following section explains how the matter ultimately unfolded.

Our Hamburg Private Detectives Begin Surveillance of the Child’s Father

The Aaden Detective Agency Hamburg thus initiated surveillance of the child’s father. For several days, nothing of relevance occurred; his interactions with his daughter appeared entirely normal, and no suspicious activity regarding possible money transfers took place. For many clients, several days of surveillance without results represent too great a financial burden, often forcing them to terminate the investigation prematurely. Fortunately, this was not the case for Ms. Berger, who had inherited a substantial sum some time ago and could afford to invest significantly in the future of her mother-daughter relationship by persistently commissioning new surveillance assignments.

 

On the sixth day of observation, the Hamburg private detectives finally observed the child’s father allowing a female individual into his residence. He then approached his target vehicle and drove in a direction that had never been recorded during prior observations by our Hamburg detectives. As he turned into the street where the caregiver lived, our observers experienced a “Bingo!” moment. There was no legitimate reason for these two to be meeting privately, and even if no monetary exchange could be documented, a secret meeting alone was sufficiently suspicious to support arguments for appointing a new caregiver.

The Caregiver’s Motive Comes to Light

The child’s father parked in front of the caregiver’s residence but did not exit; instead, he appeared to make a phone call. A few minutes later, the caregiver exited the house dressed for the evening and entered the father’s vehicle. The two exchanged a long kiss! This gave the situation a new dimension: although the initial assumption that the caregiver had been influenced in preparing her reports was correct, her motive clearly was not financial but rather a personal relationship with the child’s father.

 

Later that evening, the pair attended a theatre performance, had a drink at a bar, and eventually returned to the caregiver’s residence, where the father stayed overnight. During this time, our Hamburg private detectives successfully documented hugs, kisses, and further affectionate interactions between the two parties in a legally admissible manner.

Gaining a New Perspective: The Aaden Detective Agency Hamburg Observes Their Own Client

When the operations team of the Aaden Detective Agency Hamburg informed Ms. Berger of these findings, she reacted with near euphoria after an initial shock: “They wanted to destroy my life, but now they’ll get it back! Incredible! He has always been a womanizer!” Our client wanted to rush straight to court with the investigation report, but our detectives held her back, offering an alternative perspective to strengthen her case: Although the caregiver’s bias had now been proven, courtroom proceedings can sometimes be unpredictable. The guiding principle in professional evidence collection should always be: double-check everything.

 

The Aaden Detective Agency Hamburg proposed that Ms. Berger herself be observed while exercising her visitation rights. This would provide an independent perspective on her interactions with her daughter, which could then be compared with the caregiver’s report, who also accompanied the visits being monitored by our Hamburg detectives. Since Ms. Berger had been permitted to see her daughter only in the caregiver’s presence for several months, any significant discrepancies between the caregiver’s report and our detective’s observations—or outright factual inaccuracies—would conclusively demonstrate misuse of the caregiver’s authority. Ms. Berger agreed to this plan immediately.

Ensuring Objectivity and Independence of the Detective Report

At the next scheduled visit, a detective from the Aaden Detective Agency Hamburg followed the trio of mother, daughter, and caregiver. The detective was initially unaware of the purpose of the surveillance and was instructed solely to observe, occasionally document the interaction through photos and video, and later record his findings in a written report. This ensured complete independence of the documentation and assessment, as he did not know who the client was or for whose benefit the surveillance was conducted. In such a setup, it is even more likely that the observed individual is the client rather than the target of surveillance.

 

According to our Hamburg detective, the mother interacted lovingly with her child. Both appeared familiar and comfortable together, playing at a playground and walking hand in hand to an ice cream parlor. There was no indication of any shortcomings in the mother’s behavior. In contrast, the caregiver displayed detachment and consistently wore a “sour expression,” as the detective reported to the operations team by phone. “She keeps pouting constantly!” and did not engage at all with the mother and child’s conversations.

Comparison of Caregiver Report and Detective Report

As expected, the comparison of the caregiver’s report with the report of our private detective from Hamburg revealed stark differences. Not only did the caregiver portray the mother’s behaviour in a wildly distorted negative light, but even the locations of the events were partly stated incorrectly. No embellishment is needed here: the caregiver simply lied.

 

After the surveillance of the detective, who had not been briefed beforehand, and after he had written his report, he was informed of the background of the operation. First, the operations management of Aaden Detective Agency Hamburg explained to him that the client was at the same time the target person, whereupon he immediately shot back: “What kind of nonsense is that? If she knows she is being watched, of course she will behave nicely and inconspicuously – what evidential value is that supposed to have??”

Abuse of caregiving duties

After our observer was informed that his deployment was only very indirectly about the mother’s behaviour and primarily about the truthfulness of the caregiver’s report, the detective became indignant toward the operations management of Aaden Corporate Investigations Hamburg and said that such people should not be allowed to decide what a mother-child relationship should look like. “Those are outrageous responsibilities for a child’s development and well-being – you cannot make that dependent on one person alone!” But that is the reality in Germany. Legal caregivers are important and fulfil significant functions in our society. Yet their role is extremely vulnerable to abuse. Abuse that can permanently damage the lives of several innocent adults and, above all, children.

 

A popular example of such abuse of caregiving duties can be found in books and film: the fictional character Lisbeth Salander from Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy is not only treated improperly by her legal guardian and restricted in her decision-making power, but is even sexually abused. Thankfully, it did not come to that in the present case of Aaden Detective Agency Hamburg, but the problem should nevertheless have become clear here as well.

The caregiver has no qualifications whatsoever

Incidentally, the matter did not leave our Hamburg detective, who had observed Ms. Berger’s meeting with her daughter, untouched. He conducted further research into the caregiver and discovered that she had no qualifications whatsoever for this role. Before that, she had worked as an administrative employee with training as a business administrator. The necessary psychological knowledge for performing caregiving duties could not have been acquired either during her education or during the administrative work we knew of from her previous employment.

 

“It is a scandal that something like this is possible in Germany!” our investigator grumbled at the conclusion of the case. How the future custody arrangement between Ms. Berger and her ex-partner will look is not yet known to Aaden Corporate Investigations Hamburg. However, we do know from the client that there has at least already been an immediate change of caregiver.

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

Aaden Corporate Detective Agency Hamburg

Contor Center Hamburg

Katharinenstraße 30a

D-20457 Hamburg 

Tel.: +49 40 4223 6960

E-Mail: info@aaden-detektive-hamburg.de

Web: https://aaden-detektive-hamburg.de/en

 

CEO: Maya Grünschloß, PhD

Register Court: Amtsgericht Köln

Registration Number: HRB 83824