A Dutchman isolated six of his children in a remote farmhouse from birth and beat them to drive out “bad spirits” from the outside world, prosecutors told a court on Tuesday. “The children all speak of very serious physical punishment if their father thought there was a ‘bad spirit’ in them. Police raided the farm and arrested Van D. and an Austrian man identified as Joseph B., 58. – ‘Unclean’ –Van D. was absent for medical reasons from Tuesday’s hearing. Citing diaries kept by the children, prosecutors said they had all spoken of their “conviction that contact with the outside world makes you ‘unclean’ and about ‘bad spirits’ that come into bodies.

Source: Punch January 21, 2020 12:00 UTC