A 43-year-old man in eastern France has been placed in pre-trial detention after police discovered his nine-year-old son living in a parked van in conditions of severe neglect. The boy was found on Monday, 6 April, in Hagenbach, a small municipality of around 800 residents in the Alsace region, after a neighbour reported hearing "sounds of children" coming from a vehicle parked in a residential courtyard. The father has since admitted to confining the child and withholding care from him.
When officers opened the van, they found the boy lying in a foetal position, naked, covered by a blanket, and surrounded by waste and excrement. Nicolas Heitz, the public prosecutor for Mulhouse — the nearest major city, some 20 kilometres from Hagenbach — described the child as "pale and clearly malnourished." Having spent an extended period confined in a cramped space, the boy had lost the ability to walk and was immediately transferred to a hospital in Mulhouse, where he remains in a safe condition.
According to the father's account, the boy had been living in the van since late 2024, when he was just seven years old. The man told investigators he had taken this step to prevent his partner — a 37-year-old woman who is not the boy's biological mother — from having the child admitted to a psychiatric facility. The father's partner lived with him in a nearby apartment along with their two daughters, aged 10 and 12. During his confinement, the boy's father brought him food and water twice a day; the child urinated into plastic bottles and defecated into rubbish bags. The boy told investigators his last shower had been at the end of 2024. Prosecutors have found no medical documentation supporting any psychiatric diagnosis for the child. The boy's school in Mulhouse had closed his file after the family indicated he would pursue an alternative form of education.
The father has been charged with unlawful imprisonment under aggravating circumstances, arbitrary detention of a minor, and deprivation of care or food in a manner that endangered the child's health. His partner has been charged with failure to assist a minor in danger and failure to report abuse, though her movements have been restricted rather than leading to pre-trial detention. She denies the allegations. The boy's biological mother, who had no contact with her former partner, had publicly appealed on social media in August 2024 for information about her children's whereabouts. Neighbours told investigators the boy had appeared to "vanish overnight," though the couple had implied he had been placed under guardianship; some who heard noises from the van were told it contained a cat.
Prosecutors have ordered the temporary placement of all three children — the confined boy and his two sisters — in care. The case has prompted questions about how a child could remain hidden from school authorities and social services for well over a year in a densely populated residential setting.