A couple who kept their three young children locked inside a squalid house for nearly four years have been jailed in a case that has shaken Spain. The parents, a 53-year-old German man and a 48-year-old woman with dual German and US citizenship, were each sentenced to two years and 10 months in prison for family abandonment and causing psychological harm.
Authorities rescued the three boys – twins aged eight and their 10-year-old brother – from the ‘house of horrors’ in Oviedo last April. The children were found with marked motor difficulties, wearing diapers and sleeping in cribs in a filthy house full of rubbish and stockpiled medication. Police said the children had no television, electronic devices or games, and wore shoes four sizes too small.
Officers were shocked by how the children reacted to the outside world. “They were touching the grass, breathing as if they had never done so before in their lives. They saw a snail and were completely fascinated,” sources told El Pais. The prosecution said the children had not been outside in four years, not even into their own garden, and did not know their relatives.
The couple, who are believed to have developed a fear of the outside world during the Covid-19 pandemic, were cleared of more serious unlawful detention charges. Prosecutors had sought 25-year prison sentences. The defence argued the parents made “a series of decisions, certainly wrong, incorrect, but not criminal”.
The parents were ordered to pay €30,000 (£26,000) compensation to each child and were stripped of custody for at least three years and four months. The children have been placed in the care of social services. The couple’s lawyer said they were “moderately satisfied” with the sentence but were considering an appeal.
