A 43-year-old German man has been rescued from a house in Bavaria after apparently having been held in isolation by his parents for the past three decades.
German prosecutors are investigating the man’s parents on charges of assault through neglect and false imprisonment.
“We still don’t know exactly for how long the man has had no contact with the outside world and ... whether or not he was allowed to leave the property at all,” police spokesman Jürgen Stadter told German media. “But we can say he was held in isolation.”
The man is said to have been in an unkempt state, with ingrown toenails and smeared in his own excrement but was not undernourished.
Neighbours raised the alarm having reported hearing the man moaning at the house in Freienfels, northern Bavaria.
Police raided the home and found the man who they took to a regional hospital where he is being treated. Doctors there have said they believe he is mentally disabled.
Police said the man had been to primary school and had started secondary education, but at about the age of 13 experts declared him to be unfit for school.
His mother told the local newspaper Nordbayerische Kurier her son had "had enough of life" having been teased at school.
“He wanted to stay with us. If I were to tell you what we went through, you wouldn’t believe me. All I ever wanted to do was protect him,” she said.
She described the police raid on the family home as an “ambush”.
In a similar case in April, police freed a 26-year-old woman from a flat in Rosenheim, Bavaria, who had been allegedly held in a room by her 54-year-old mother for years. The mother jumped out of the second floor flat when the police entered and was badly injured.
The Guardian