The missing girl from Holzheim in the Dillingen district is not allowed to stay with her biological parents: the Dillingen district court rejected the parents’ application for the retransfer of parental custody.
The parents, who belong to the controversial Twelve Tribes, had had their custody partially revoked because they were at risk of hitting their daughter. According to the family judge at the Dillingen district court, this danger still exists. The parents had not sufficiently distanced themselves from the upbringing methods of the religious community. The girl turned eleven in October of this year, but it is customary in the Twelve Tribes to discipline children up to the age of thirteen.
Parents and child failed to appear in court
In order to find out what the girl’s wishes were, he should have spoken to her personally, the judge continued. A video questioning suggested by the lawyer is not sufficient for him, because the girl could be influenced.
Parents and daughter failed to appear at the court hearing without an excuse. The judge said he could not accept the fear of possible arrest as an excuse.
Europe-wide search
The parents are being searched for across Europe on suspicion of child abduction. The police and prosecutors assume that the parents illegally took their daughter away on October 16. At that time she had not returned to her foster parents in Holzheim after jogging. She had lived there since she was three years old.
Whereabouts unknown
Shortly after her disappearance, members of the religious community contacted the foster family on behalf of the birth parents: the girl was fine, she was with her birth parents, the e-mail said.
Since then there has been no trace of the child. The police assume that the parents live in the Czech Republic in a branch of the Twelve Tribes. However, Czech police officers had already searched there and found neither the child nor his parents.
Older brother was allowed to go back to parents
After some back and forth, the parents had regained custody of the girl’s older brother. At the time, he had run away from a youth welfare facility. As with his sister now, the parents reported a little later that the child was with them. The boy was older, according to the Dillinger family judge, and the parents only got custody back after a probationary period.