Incredible act of son locked up by doomsday dad for 10 years to save siblings | World | News
Gerrit Jan van Dorsten aka John Eagles (Image: undefined)
For over a decade, Gerrit Jan Van Dorsten subjected his children to abuse, even confining them in cages as part of his twisted belief that the world was on the brink of destruction.
The six youngsters, all of whom had reached adulthood by the time they were finally liberated, endured years of harrowing torment. They were subjected to regular beatings, starved of food, and one was even confined to a kennel for an entire summer.
Upon his arrest in 2019, Van Dorsten justified his depraved behaviour by claiming his children were “unclean” and that his horrific treatment would “stop evil spirits”.
It was the courageous actions of one of Van Dorsten’s own children, Israel, known as Jan, that ultimately freed his siblings and led to his father facing justice for his crimes.
One night in October 2019, Jan walked into a bar in a small village in the Netherlands and revealed the terrifying reality of life inside the family’s remote home. Staff immediately alerted the police, who raced to the property and discovered a deeply disturbing scene, reports the Daily Star.
Gerrit Jan van Dorsten kept his kids locked away while expecting an imminent apocalypse (Image: undefined)
Officers rescued Van Dorsten’s children from the house of horrors, and he was charged with inflicting “very serious physical punishment”.
Jan’s account in the bar that night left all those present utterly shocked and appalled. He revealed that he and his siblings had been forbidden from leaving the property for nine years, as they waited for the apocalypse.
As the investigation unfolded, it was discovered Van Dorsten had confined his own children, all aged between 18 and 25, in tiny, purpose-built cells within a concealed dungeon underneath the property.
During the subsequent court proceedings following the disturbing discovery, it also came to light that one of the children, a boy, had been disciplined by having both his hands and feet restrained.
Jan managed to save his siblings (Image: Facebook)
Another was imprisoned in a dog kennel for an entire summer, the court heard, and compelled to live separately from the rest of his family in a caravan.
A 61-year-old Austrian handyman, described as a ‘disciple’ of Van Dorsten, was imprisoned for assisting in isolating the children.
Dutch privacy regulations meant he could only be identified as Joseph B, but the court heard he would deliver food and groceries to the family and that without his help the appalling abuse and isolation would have concluded far earlier.
However, the court, held in the Dutch city of Assen, found Joseph B not guilty of detaining three older children and abusing any of van Dorsten’s children.
Following a stroke, van Dorsten himself was considered too unwell to stand trial.
Nevertheless, the sick father was charged with depriving the children of their liberty from 2007 to 2019, as well as alleged sexual abuse of two of his older three children.
Prosecutors stated the youngest six of the nine children “lived in seclusion from birth, were kept indoors and had to be quiet so that no one would notice that they existed.”
Having never set foot in a school, the children were unregistered with Dutch authorities and had been so completely cut off from the outside world that they had lost the ability to communicate properly, speaking a peculiar “fantasy language” that left officers stunned, according to the lawyers.
