French boy found unable to walk after year confined to van, father faces decades in prison

A French father faces up to 30 years in prison after his malnourished nine-year-old son was found confined to a van for more than a year. Photo by SEBASTIEN BOZON /AFP

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A father who confined his child in a van for more than a year could face 30 years in jail, a French prosecutor said Wednesday, giving further details of his ordeal.

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Officers opened the van last week to find the boy, now nine, lying in the fetal position, malnourished and no longer able to walk in the eastern village of Hagenbach.

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A neighbour had sounded the alarm over the sounds of a child coming from the vehicle in a shared courtyard.

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The 43-year-old father, who has been remanded in custody, faces up to 30 years in jail on charges of confining the boy and depriving him of care, prosecutor Nicolas Heitz said.

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He has admitted the charges and claimed he sought to protect his son from his new partner, who “wanted him to be admitted to a psychiatric ward.”

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The child has been taken to hospital in the nearby city of Mulhouse.

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The boy has told investigators he had a “very bad relationship with his stepmother,” describing her as “his worst enemy and as mean,” Heitz said.

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The boy claimed his father had “no choice” other than to place him in the van in September 2024 as he did not want to go and stay with his mother, who has struggled with her mental health, the prosecutor said.

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“His father would bring him water and food twice a day, usually cold meals,” he added. He had a bundle of clothes and had to urinate into empty bottles.

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His father regularly took out the trash. But the boy also said “that his dad no longer washed his clothes and that he no longer had pyjamas.”

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He slept on a mattress and no longer had a toothbrush. His toys were stored in a box in his room, the prosecutor said.

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His 12-year-old sister, who stayed in the family home, reported that she “thought her brother had been committed” to a psychiatric hospital, the prosecutor said.

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She told investigators that his behaviour had changed after their father moved in with his new partner and her daughter, now 10. He had “become violent” and often insulted his stepmother.

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The father’s parents said the boy had become “difficult” and prone to “tantrums, having probably not coped well with his parents’ separation” in 2022.

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The mother said she had been treated at a psychiatric hospital between 2022 and 2024, then had last year been awarded the right to visit her children in the presence of a social worker, but had been unable to do so.

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The stepmother faces up to seven years in jail, including for failing to help a child in danger, the prosecutor said. She has denied any wrongdoing.

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