A NINE-YEAR-OLD boy has been rescued after allegedly being locked in a van for more than a year by his dad, forced to poo in bin bags.
The child was unable to walk after so long in cramped conditions in the vehicle in Hagenbach, eastern France.
He was found on Monday and told cops he had been shut in the van at since the end of 2024, when he was just seven.
When cops arrived to the car park where the van was kept, he told them that he couldn’t open the van because of a jammed locking system.
Police were shocked at what they found inside.
The boy was naked under a blanket in horrifying conditions after neighbours said they heard “sounds of a child” coming from the van.
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Police said the boy was found “lying in the foetal position, naked, covered by a blanket on a pike of rubbish, close to human excrement”.
The boy told cops he was not even allowed to leave the van to go to the toilet – he had been forced to wee in bottles and poo in bin bags.
They added that he was malnourished and unable to walk after being trapped in the vehicle for so long.
When neighbours first raised the alarm, they were told the sound was just a cat.
The child’s 43-year-old dad was arrested and his other children – two girls, aged 10 and 12 – were taken into care.
He told cops that his 37-year-old partner hadn’t wanted the child in the flat, telling him to send him to a psychiatric hospital.
He said he shut him in the vehicle to “protect him” and avoid sending him away, but told neighbours and friends he had put the boy into care.
Police said the last time the boy had had a shower was in 2024.
The boy told police that his dad would leave him bottles of water and brought him food twice a day.
He was briefly allowed to return to the flat last summer, while the rest of his family were on holiday – his dad gave him a phone at this point “to communicate with him and tell him when he could get out of the van or when he had to leave the apartment”.
The boy had a stellar school record and prosecutors said there was “no medical evidence” to suggest that he had any psychiatric problems.
CCTV showed the dad going to the van twice a day “where he appeared to be throwing something inside”.
The dad said his partner had no idea he had locked the child in the van.
She said she was convinced the child had been taken to a psychiatric hospital – but admitted to hearing noises from the van.
The dad was charged on Wednesday with arrest, abduction, confinement, or arbitrary detention of a child and depriving food or care to a child.
His partner was charged with failure to report mistreatment, deprivation, assault, or sexual abuse inflicted on a minor under 15 years of age.