Father kept son in a van for over a year in France, faces charges

STRASBOURG, France - French authorities have charged a father for confining his nine-year-old son to a van for more than a year, where police found the child malnourished and unable to walk, a prosecutor said April 10.

Officers found the child on April 6 in the eastern town of Hagenbach after a nearby resident heard “the sounds of a child” coming from a van parked in a courtyard shared by several homes, said the public prosecutor in the nearby city of Mulhouse, Mr Nicolas Heitz.

After unlocking the van, officers found the nine-year-old “lying in the fetal position, naked, covered with a blanket on a pile of rubbish and near excrement”.

The “pale and malnourished” child was no longer able to walk due to prolonged sitting, the prosecutor said, adding he was immediately taken to the hospital.

The 43-year-old father admitted to confining the boy and depriving him of care.

He lives with his 37-year-old partner, who is not the boy’s mother, and two girls, aged 10 and 12.

One of the girls is the boy’s sister, while the other is the partner’s daughter from a different relationship.

Mr Heitz added that the father said he kept the child in the van in November 2024 “to protect him because his partner wanted him to be admitted to a psychiatric ward”.

The father said he had allowed the boy to leave the van with him until May 2025, as well as access the family home in the summer of 2025, while the rest of the family was on vacation.

The father’s partner also faces charges including failure to report abuse, Mr Heitz said.

According to the father, his partner suspected something but did not know the boy was confined to the vehicle.

She has denied any wrongdoing. AFP