Terrible Suspicion in Attendorn, Germany: A mother is said to have locked up her daughter for about seven years. Now the child has been released.
Everything changed for the eight-year-old girl on 23 September: that day, police and the welfare office searched her grandparents’ house in Attendorn, North Rhine-Westphalia, and found her in the house. It is said that she lived there for over seven years without ever leaving the apartment. During her examination at the children’s hospital in Siegen, the girl said that she had never seen a forest and had never sat in a meadow.
She had also never been in a car. “Everything is so big, there is so much space,” said the child in amazement. Until now, M. has mostly lived in a room with the door locked, according to authorities, according to “Sauerlandkurier”. The girl was immediately placed in a foster family.
According to authorities, the girl is doing well under the circumstances. There were no signs of abuse. Now a psychological report is being prepared – and she needs to get used to the fact that the world is much bigger than her grandparents’ house. According to the prosecutor in charge Patrick Baron von Grotthuss, she is “curious”. However, she “could barely climb stairs or overcome bumps in the floor”.
Mother would have moved to Italy
When the girl was born in 2013, her parents were already separated. After that, they initially saw each other several times a week, but the following year her mother stated that she would move to Italy with her young son – the father initially did not doubt this. Although her mother gave her an address in Italy, she never went there and hid with M. in her parents’ house for over seven years.
When the child’s father claimed that he had seen his ex several times in Attendorn, the youth welfare office asked the grandparents several times, but they stated that the daughter lived with her granddaughter in Italy. Post that he was sent to Italy also apparently arrived.
Crucial tip
It was a key tip from a family member that finally led to action: the man had declared that he wanted to visit his mother and M. in Italy, where the two would have moved in 2014, but that’s when he discovered that the two would never have lived there. . He also called his mother at her parents’ house.
While there had been suspicions earlier that the mother had probably not moved, authorities now had the legal authority to search the house. Previously, the grandparents always “emphatically” refused to let anyone from the authorities into the house.
Nothing is known about the mother’s motives for keeping her daughter at home for years. You and your parents will have to answer some questions. The charge against the mother is ill-treatment of wards and deprivation of liberty.
Nav counts 20 minutes, leo Hora05.11.2022, 17:29| Act: 11.05.2022, 17:43