Strange job man is imprisoned to keep farmer children isolated

Reinerwald’s church. Photo: Kiwi91 via Wikimedia Commons

A “strange work man” who lived on an isolated farm until six children fled and warned authorities was imprisoned for three years for helping deprive them of their freedom.

Joseph B played an “essential role” in the farmhouse, and without him the father would not have been able to keep his children isolated from society for a long time, Assen’s court said.

However, he was not found guilty of physically abusing the youngest child of a family of nine who had not been registered for birth and was out of school.

B, along with the children’s father, Gerrit Jan van D, and the children, in 2019, one of the older children went to a local bar and asked for help on a farm near the village of Reinerwald. Lived in. It is believed that they lived on the farm for nine years.

Judge Assen determined that B, a born Austrian, played an important role in isolating the family, helping his father rent real estate, shopping and providing financial support.

Father Gerrit Jan van D was also faced with abuse and deprivation of children’s freedom, and two sexual abuses, but the proceedings against him were abandoned early last year due to his poor health. Was done.

Van D had a stroke a few years before the discovery of his family. He currently lives in the facility.

At the time of their discovery, the family was portrayed as a kind of doomsday cult unrelated to the outside world, but later it became clear that both father and eldest son were active on social media. I did. However, his father had a past connection with Mooney’s religious cult, where he and B met.