The details that, little by little, are becoming known about the eight minors mistreated by their parents in the Madrid town of Colmenar Viejo, delve into the helplessness in which the little ones found themselves in their day to day. The couple's own neighbors have denounced that they left the children locked up "for hours and hours" in the patio, whatever the weather, and they highlight the noise in the house due to the family's nightlife.
A few days ago the minors "took some matches and burned the fence and almost burned down the house" according to what Enrique, one of the neighbors, told EFE, who assures that even "once, a girl tried to jump out of the window because they were all the time in a room and couldn't get out.
These are some of the testimonies collected by EFE in this chalet cooperative that was built about a decade ago and where the 45-year-old doctor and his 44-year-old wife lived with the blinds down all day.
Inside were the eight children, who slept in a single room in a chalet that has about 250 square meters, with three floors and three bathrooms, according to the neighbors.
According to judicial investigations, the minors were "physically punished, malnourished and cornered in a room" of a "totally unsanitary" home.
The judicial investigation has confirmed "a serious situation of helplessness" and domestic violence, allegedly carried out by the father, who is a doctor in a Madrid hospital and who would also mistreat the mother.
For now, the children have been admitted to a first reception center of the Community of Madrid, while the parents, who have been provisionally released, "parental authority of the minors, of those who have a Restraining order.
Enrique, one of the neighbors, recounts that when the windows of the house were open you could see, from the chalets opposite, the bunk beds in the children's room from which they could not leave." They also left them, according to his story. , locked in the courtyard.
"They were always alone", according to this neighbor, who "sensed something", but not that there was abuse, and who is surprised that at school they did not realize something before.
The first investigations, in fact, revealed that the minors used to constantly miss class, being "excused school absences by the father."
"The mother seems older than normal," according to Enrique, because "she has white hair, she is a little plump and that made us think that she was possibly pregnant again. She always wore a tracksuit to take the children to school."
Some neighbors agree that she seemed "a bit disheveled", but that the appearance of the children, who went to the school a few meters from the house, "was normal".
The house is on the outskirts of this mountain town, in an urbanization of chalets that have a backyard that today is full of tricycles, bicycles, scooters and discarded little gadgets.
In the small space at the entrance to the house there is still a clothesline with clothes for the mother and the little ones.
According to the investigation, the home presented "a state of unsanitary conditions in all rooms except the office" of the father, while the hygienic and sanitary situation of the bathrooms and kitchen was "terrible."
The urbanization has a swimming pool, which the children never went to, according to another neighbor, Tito. "Not even seeing them. They don't ring a bell to me. It was a surprise. We had no contact, but some neighbors told me that the children in the basement were making a lot of noise," he says.
He has four daughters, and says they hadn't seen the kids in the pool either.
Another neighbor, who arrived at the house shortly after this summer, says, however, that he did not notice anything unusual about them, and that he even introduced himself to them when he settled in the urbanization. His partner even saw his mother in the garage on occasions when she went to park the van.
But most of the neighbors maintain that it was not normal for the children not to go to the park.
"Some things were visible," says a young woman who walks with her partner and a baby's stroller down the street of the chalet where today only the noise of cars passing by is heard.
