Dutch court convicts German parents of abusing young son

THE HAGUE, Netherlands – A Dutch court has sentenced the father and mother of an 8-year-old German boy to three years in prison for abusing the child on a campsite in the eastern Netherlands last year.

Judges in Zutphen ruled Tuesday that the parents, both 35-year-old Germans, kicked their son, bound his arms and legs and gave him insufficient food and drink over a period of nearly two months from June 1, 2017.

In a statement, the court called the offences “very serious child abuse.”

The campsite was in Winterswijk, close to the Dutch-German border and about 150 kilometres (93 miles) east of Amsterdam.

The court said the parents, whose identities were not released, were convicted in Germany of child abuse in 2012 for mistreating the woman’s oldest son from a previous relationship.