Father of 19 gets two years for child abuse
The court in Utrecht found 59-year-old Henk K. from Bunschoten-Spakenburg guilty of abusing his own children and sentenced him to two years in prison. He is also not allowed to contact 14 of his children and grandchildren, NU.nl reports.
Henk K. and his wife Diana have 19 children. The parents are very religious and strict in their upbringing. In 2016 a number of the children pressed charges against their father, saying that he systematically abused them for years.
The court found K. guilty of abusing 10 of his children and locking five of them up repeatedly. The Public Prosecutor also accused K. of sexually abusing an 11-year-old daughter and tying a son to a table and threatening him with a chainsaw. But the court acquitted him of these charges.
K. claims that his children made up these stories to take revenge on him for pressing charges against a number of them for theft. Some of K.'s other children stated that their brothers and sisters lied about their father.
The family came into contact with various authorities before, among other things because of abuse and for withdrawing their children from compulsory education. Diana K. is also being prosecuted. She is accused of not protecting her children from their father.
