Children 'kidnapped' from care home by father found in their mother's house
Children 'kidnapped' from care home by father found in their mother's house
By: thinkSPAIN , Saturday, June 6, 2015
A NATIONAL search for three children taken out of a care home by their father has ended now that they have been found safe and well in a Madrid apartment with their mother and aunt, both of whom have been arrested along with their father.
The youngsters, aged three, five and seven were taken into care by the social services in December and currently live at a children's home in La Carolina (Jaén province), but their father Manuel M. M., 47, who comes from the area has been trying to get custody of them for some time.
He has staged protests outside the provincial council's department of equality, health and social policy, to no avail.
During one of his regular visits - always in the company of a psychologist - he claimed that they had gone missing in a park in La Carolina and reported their 'disappearance' to the police.
He had taken advantage of the psychologist's having gone to fetch sweets and takeaway coffees from a kiosk a few metres away.
The case bore a chilling resemblance to that of José Bretón, who claimed to have 'lost' his children, Ruth, six and José, two in a park in Córdoba during an access visit, and who is now serving a 40-year sentence for their murder.
But in the present case, the three kids were found in the Villaverde neighbourhood of Madrid where their mother and aunt were hiding them.
When their 'disappearance' hit the headlines, the children's mother began to panic and eventually decided to give herself up to the Local Police.
The three adults were taken into police custody and the children returned to the home in Jaén.
Both women have been charged with aiding and abetting, and the father with kidnap.
They had engineered the plan to take the children from the home and hide them when they heard they were about to go to live with foster parents.
Limited information is forthcoming because of the case centring on minors, so the reasons for the children having been taken into care have not been revealed.
Since the children went missing, it has transpired both parents have a 'police record'.
After the kids vanished, police kept their mother's and father's family members in the provinces of Madrid, Jaén and Murcia under close vigilance and tapped their phones.