On February 24, a 24-year-old girl who said her name was Daniela knocked on the door of a farmhouse in Arbúcies, in the heart of Les Guilleries. From here, the Local Police began to investigate to confirm the girl's story, that she said she had escaped from a house where she had been incommunicado for years. The authorities discovered that a family lived in the municipality that kept their children isolated against their will.
In the 21st century, this family, originally from the Netherlands, has managed to live on the margins of society, circumventing the child protection system and keeping their children incommunicado. Now, as adults, without having socialized or studied in their lives, they find no place in society.
According to El Punt Avui, the young woman stated that she did not want to return home with her parents because they had her locked up, totally isolated from the world, without television, without social networks and without any contact with the outside world, except for the trips she made by car with their parents just to go grocery shopping. She explained that she had a brother, Alex, 18, who was in the same situation as her. She also said that she had never been educated or dealt with anyone outside of her family. And that before they lived in Matadepera, along with two of her mother's brothers.
The agents verified that the girl lived with her family in the La Nou farmhouse, a fenced and difficult-to-access area, isolated. Her father, a 58-year-old Dutch man, claimed that the girl suffered from a mental disorder and that she was being treated by a relative.
The police contacted this man, a resident of Matadepera, who assured that Daniela had outbreaks and had made some attempt at self-harm, and that he was the one who medicated her, but that there was no diagnosis or medical report on the girl's illness.
Together with their colleagues from Matadepera, the Arbúcies police managed to discover that the family had been residing in the municipality for half a year, to which they had moved from Matadepera, apparently because the mother suffers from a disease resulting from a high sensitivity to radiation that prevents you from being in places close to antennas. Argument that the couple used to reason their isolation.
Although he denied having it, the father had a NIE number and an expired UK driving license and passport. Just like the woman. In Matadepera, the four members of the family were registered, but neither Daniela nor Alex had documentation that identified them and there was no record that they had ever gone to school or to the CAP.
Given the peculiarity of the case, the Arbúcies police filed proceedings before the Santa Coloma de Farners court, which ordered the Mossos to handle the investigation.
On March 3, the parents were summoned to the police station and questioned as being investigated for abuse, continued domestic violence, and family abandonment. During the interrogation, assisted by a court-appointed lawyer, they refused to testify.
In the statement in court, according to El Punt Avui, they were assisted by a private lawyer and after listening to their arguments (they maintain that in the Netherlands education can be done at home) and taking into account that the children are of legal age and they did not want to file a complaint against their parents, the judge allowed the family to continue residing together as long as the young people have more freedom.
