The father of the two young children who were found in diapers and living in filthy conditions on a remote Italian farm hid them from the world to protect them from catching Covid.
The nine-year-old boy and his seven-year-old sister had never been registered with a school or doctor and were completely unknown to the outside world.
So when Italian authorities discovered them in a filthy and frightened state inside a dilapidated property near the town of Lauriano back in April, several questions were raised over the conditions they were found in.
Their reclusive father, a 54-year-old Dutch sculptor named locally as Frederick, defended his decision to keep them hidden, explaining that he was afraid of his children catching Covid.
He was also reportedly afraid of vaccinating his children against the virus and did not want them to wear masks at the height of the pandemic, which resulted in him hiding them away.
‘I love my children. I just wanted to protect them,’ he told local news outlet Corriere Torino, adding: ‘I’m not a paranoid who wants to hide from the world. I just like doing things alone and spending time with my family.’
The children were born in Germany before moving to Italy.
Frederick told the local newspaper that the family moved to Italy after he purchased the property.
He insisted they had access to laptops, musical instruments, and even went skiing and horse riding.
‘In the winter we go skiing half an hour from here, in the summer we go to the beach’, he told Corriere della Sera.
‘My children lack nothing, they have toys, computers, they go pony riding and we go with them to restaurants and to museums.’
He also described his kids as ‘two happy, sociable children’ who ‘always have a lot of fun’.
But authorities quickly realised the children – who have been dubbed ‘ghost children’ by local media – could neither read nor write and had no access to basic hygiene.
Speaking about the fact his children were not known to authorities, he said that he intended to register them with the municipality, but never got around to doing so due to his wife’s ‘health problems’.
‘They are not ghosts, they have a name and surname and are registered in Germany’, he said.
The siblings were discovered when emergency services arrived to evacuate the property following a flood warning back in April.
When officers arrived, they found the property strewn with rotting furniture, rusting trampolines, and piles of rubbish.
But most shockingly, the siblings were found wearing nappies far beyond their usual age.
Frederick claimed that the reason for this was because he forgot to pack their underwear after they got evacuated from the property during the floods.
‘During the hasty evacuation of the house I forgot the little ones’ underwear and at the nursery they gave me some diapers and they put those on’, he told Corriere Della Sera.
The children were immediately taken into care following an emergency order from the Turin Juvenile Court.
‘There are facts that suggest that the minors are deprived of adequate assistance from their parents or relatives who are required to provide it,’ the court ruled.
The children’s mother, 38, who Frederick said is of Moroccan origin, is believed to be homeless and reportedly showed little concern when officials removed her children, according to Dutch media.
Commenting on the shocking case, Mayor Mara Bacolla explained how the father ‘made the farmhouse independent from an energy and water point of view. For this reason he managed to isolate himself.’
Mayor Baccolla said the case had rocked the small community.
‘It is a very delicate matter,’ she said. ‘These children can finally find a balance and have access to a life worthy of the name.’
She described the father as ‘very reserved’ and unable to speak Italian.
The Juvenile Prosecutor’s Office of Turin said: ‘The mother is absent or disinterested. The father forces them into isolation.’
Locals were left stunned – while some had noticed the farmhouse changing hands, no one had seen or heard signs of children inside.
The children are now being cared for by the state as foster arrangements are put in place.
‘I will fight until they are returned to us. We want to live in Italy, in this wonderful country that has gone too far in taking our children away from us… I am not the bogeyman and I miss them so much’, Frederick said.
It comes after three boys were allegedly locked inside their home for four years by their Covid-obsessed parents in northern Spain.
They were discovered by authorities in April and had apparently been kept in the residence since 2021.
It is understood the family closed off to the world during the Covid-19 pandemic, forbidding the children from going outside, and making them sleep in caged beds.
The interior of the house was littered with hoards of rubbish and mountains of accumulated medicines, Spanish police said. Surfaces were covered in filthy pet excrement and the family also had a cat with a massive tumour.
The children, two eight-year-old twin boys and their ten-year-old brother, were reportedly wearing nappies when police found them.
Investigators were concerned the children seemed unsteady as they walked outside for the first time in years – almost half the length of their lives.
The parents, Melissa Ann Steffen, 48, who has German-American citizenship and Christian Steffen, a 53-year-old German tech recruiter, were ultimately arrested and the children placed in care.
