Costa News Spain Breaking News | English News in Spain.
A married couple who were accused of locking their three children in their home for nearly four years has said that the minors weren’t illegally detained, but rather voluntarily isolated out of fear of Covid-19.
Last year, the parents were arrested after local police discovered two twins aged eight and another child of ten in unsanitary conditions at their detached house.
Investigators accused the father, a German of 53 years, and mother, an American of 48 years, who is also a German citizen, to have locked the children in their home, located in Oviedo (Asturias), since 2021, against their will.
But the couple’s defence lawyer said the situation was symptomatic of ‘a family with dysfunctional behaviour’, rather than criminality.
Speaking to reporters ahead of the second and final session of the trial at Oviedo’s provincial court earlier this week, Javier Muñoz rejected what he slammed as the ‘stigmatising label’ of ‘the House of Horrors’ used by the media to describe the case.
“What we are dealing with is a family that has dysfunctional behavior, abnormal conduct but no criminal behavior,” he said.
He said there was no illegal detention of the children as they were free to move around inside the home, adding that the situation was caused by an ‘insurmountable and irrational fear after having been ill for quite some time’.
It is a strange, unusual and extraordinary situation but it does not constitute a crime. Having a messy house is not a crime, and not enrolling children in an official school is not a crime – it may be an administrative offence and may be reproachable from a personal or social standpoint, but not a legal one,” the lawyer said.
Prosecutors have requested prison sentences up to 25-years and 4-months for family abuse, family abandonment and illegal detention.
They say the parents locked their children up until April 2025 because of an ‘unfounded fear of a hypothetical infection’.
During this period, the children did not attend school and were not under medical supervision.
READ MORE: The rise in the bank of mom and dad: Financial contributions from parents to their children reach record highs as young people struggle to get housing
The children were found after a neighbor reported that he had seen children in the home, and heard voices. They were never seen in the yard.
The suspicions grew during this period, despite the fact that only one person lived in the house.
Three children were found by the police when they entered the house.
One of the officers involved in the incident told a newspaper that “they were very scared and gathered around the mother who kept telling us the children had serious diseases and we shouldn’t approach them.” La Nueva España.
Each of them was wearing three different masks. They were totally disconnected from reality. They were all completely disconnected from reality. “As soon as we brought them outside, they all began to breathe deeply as if it was their first time outdoors.”
Francisco Javier Lozano said, “We have demolished the house of terrors.”
Asturias’ regional government is now caring for the twins and their older brother.
Click here for more Spain News by The Olive Press.
