Parents forced daughter to drink urine, sleep naked in locked cellar, prosecutors say

The father and stepmother accused of locking their young daughter in their basement and allegedly subjecting her to systematic abuse for years should spend nearly a decade in prison, the Public Prosecution Service said on Wednesday. The parents are suspected of forcing the girl to drink her own urine, sleep naked on the cold tiles in the basement of their Venlo home, and other forms of assault when she was between the ages of six and eight.

The father, Heiko L. (34) did not appear in court during the trial in Roermond on Wednesday. The German man is again living in his home country, where he cannot be forced to attend his trial in the Netherlands. Priscilla D. (42), the girl’s Dutch stepmother, remained mostly silent in court. The OM also asked the court to arrest both suspects.

Prosecutors said that the two are guilty of assault, starvation, and treating the girl like a slave, who they also actively bullied and humiliated. She was threatened with a knife, called a fucking little bitch, and forced to stand in the rain and cold at night without wearing clothes. Prosecutors claimed the parents forced the girl to sleep naked in the locked cellar in the winter.

Eventually, the father cycled to Germany with the terminally ill child on the back of his bike. Once there, he called an ambulance, which rushed the girl to hospital.

Her core body temperature was just 31 degrees Celsius when she was admitted into the intensive care unit at a hospital in Mönchengladbach, Germany. She was covered in bruises as a result of being kicked and punched by the parents, the OM argued. The prosecutor also said the girl was suffering from dehydration.

The hospital workers were not sure if she would survive the ordeal, considering the severe hypothermia and troubling injuries, the OM stated. “Sadistic,” one prosecutor said about the crimes. The “bizarre punishment methods” utilized by both parents made the girl's life "like hell."

Even though several alarming reports had been sent to social services organization Veilig Thuis, the girl was only removed from the home once she wound up in the hospital.

Through their lawyers, both suspects mainly refused to take responsibility, and mainly pointed towards each other as the guilty party. D. said in her final statement that she was ashamed and regretful. "I went too far, but that was because of Heiko."

The court is expected to read the verdict on May 16.