The court in Assen found him guilty of deprivation of liberty on Tuesday. According to the court, the man had made it possible for the father of the family to keep his children on the farm for nine years.
The Dutchman Gerrit Jan van D. had lived with six children on the farm in Ruinerwold in the northeast of the country since 2010 – totally isolated from the public. The 61-year-old Josef B. had provided the family with food. The court ruled that he made the crimes of the father’s family possible. However, he was acquitted of the charge of abusing the children.
The father himself will not be prosecuted. The court decided last year that he is not able to stand trial after suffering a severe stroke. He is said to have psychologically terrorized his children, abused them and also sexually abused two of them.
The Dutchman had raised his children according to a natural religion he had invented himself on the farm near the German border and kept them away from the outside world under great psychological pressure. They were not known to the authorities, were not allowed to attend school and had never seen a doctor. The mother of the family had died years earlier. In October 2019, a son asked for help in the village inn.
Source: Nachrichten
