Children Kept Inside Home For Years

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29270, 30 July 1960, Page 13

Children Kept Inside Home For Years

TECUMSEH (Ontario), July 29. Officials said today that three children taken to hospital from their home had apparently been kept inside for yean, the Canadian Press reported. The news agency said the teen-age children were suffering from malnutrition. Police and welfare officers were quoted as saying the children had been kept from neighbours and school tor fivd to seven years. Names of the children and their parents were not carried by the Canadian Press. \ The children were taken to hospital in nearby Windsor after being removed from their home by police and Children's Aid Society officials. A constable said the children's mother told him they had been confined since 1949. Dr. C. J. Hanimnnd, of Windsor said the children—two girls and a boy—were “certainly in bad shape.” A police sergeant said neighbours had not seen the children for at least seven years. They had not been attended by a doctor for at least five years and they had not attended school The constable. Gus Newby, said

the mother said she had six children dating back to 1948, when she was divorced by her first husband. She had moved to Windsor from Detroit In 1949 because it was difficult to find housing for a large family and had told the landlord she had' only three children. When she had moved to Tecumseh a year later she had said the same thing gnd continued to confine them.

The constable said he was told the three confined children—the girls aged 18 and 13 and the boy 14—were all retarded in growth and unable to talk or walk properly. He said police found no locks and the children had the run of the house, a playroom with toys and proper clothes. The Canadian Press said police were notified after the boy went to the home of Mr Forest Richards. three houses away while his mother was out. “He said he was 14 but he seemed very small tor that age.” said Mr Richards. Constable Newby said the parents told police they had been worried about the children’s confinement and were relieved to have the situation out in the open. The three children had been sleeping in a single bed on the top-floor landing of the house.