Düsseldorf/Attendorn (dpa/lnw) - The family and children's committee of the state parliament was shocked across party lines by the fate of an eight-year-old girl in Attendorn. The child is said to have been held captive by his mother for years and hidden in his grandparents' house.
Critical questions came from the opposition: MP Marcel Hafke (FDP) asked why the youth welfare office in the district of Olpe did not check the mother's claim that she had moved to Italy earlier, but only after receiving several anonymous tips.
Deputy Dennis Maelzer (SPD) asked how it could be that the mother simply left the country with the child despite having custody of the father and the child welfare office was not interested in it. "You get the impression that something went wrong with this case from the start."
MP Nadja Bütefuhr (SPD) said it was shocking to learn that the police and youth welfare workers were standing in front of the house where the child was being held captive and apparently had no legal authority to enter.
She also asks herself these questions, but is not the investigating authority, said NRW family minister Josefine Paul (Greens). "What could and should have gone differently in this case is still the subject of the investigation."
It is not only determined against the mother and grandparents of the girl. The youth welfare office is also in the sights of the public prosecutor's office - because of the initial suspicion of deprivation of liberty and bodily harm in office through omission.
