A BOY held captive in a van for more than a year by his own dad has revealed the real culprit behind his imprisonment, calling her his “worst enemy”.
The nine-year-old child was found after being trapped for several months in cramped conditions.
The parking area at the location where a boy was discovered in a van, naked and malnourished Credit: AFP
The house where the boy’s father and step-mother lived while he was living outside in his father’s utility van Credit: AFP
He was locked up in a van by his father in late 2024 when he was just seven years old.
discovered the child over a year later when a neighbour reported hearing the “sound of a child” coming from the utility truck.
They described finding the boy “lying in the foetal position, naked, covered by a blanket on a pile of rubbish, close to human excrement” when he was rescued from the van on April 6 in Hagenbach, a village in northeastern .
In with detectives, the boy blamed his stepmother for his father’s neglect because she wanted him out of her life.
He called her his “worst enemy” and “a mean woman”.
According to the boy, his stepmother wanted to get rid of him by sending him to a psychiatric hospital in September 2024.
The boy said that his father “had no choice” but to lock him up in his van to prevent him being sent away.
Inside the van, the child had “nothing more than some clothes and some empty bottles to pee in”, reported prosecutor Nicolas Heitz in a press conference yesterday.
The boy also said that his last shower was in 2024, and that he did not have a toothbrush or clean clothes.
The boy’s father, 43, has confessed to the but the stepmother, 37, denies everything.
Friends and family said they did not look for the boy because the father had told them that he had been admitted to a psychiatric hospital.
But the boy did not have a of mental issues, and reportedly achieved good grades at school before being locked in the van.
The disgusting crimes occurred in the village of Hagenbach in northeastern France Credit: AP
The boy blames his stepmother for forcing his father to lock him in his own van Credit: AP
The stepmother, who lived with the boy’s father in a house beside the van, denies any wrongdoing Credit: AP
Prosecutor Nicolas Heitz revealed the latest updates to the ghastly case during a press conference on April 15 Credit: AFP
Eze Chidiebere Paul
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