Child charity chief held over son’s ‘kidnap’

THE head of a Spanish children’s charity has been arrested on suspicion of kidnapping her own 11-year-old son and holding him captive along with another child.

María Sevilla, 36, who advised Leftwing party Podemos in her capacity as president of Free Childhood, an organisation seeking protection for child abuse victims, is alleged to have kept her son and current partner’s six-yearold daughter locked up at a rural property near Cuenca, central Spain, since September last year.

The two children were found hidden in “deplorable” conditions, police sources told local press. Ms Sevilla had taken extreme security measures, and they were only allowed outside for 20 minutes a day, once it was dark, supervised by the girl’s father.

Spanish police confirmed that Sevilla was in breach of an order granting full custody of her son (only referred to as Baby S) to Rafael Marcos, his father.

“He is like a broken child, afraid of everything,” Mr Marcos told Spanish TV on Tuesday. “When he first saw me, he looked paralysed with shock.

“I know that he got up at lunchtime, practically in the afternoon, then spent the rest of the day watching soaps with his mother, and little else,” he added. “It was as if he was in prison.”

The custody ruling, in 2017, found Ms Sevilla to have “severely obstructed” Mr Marcos’s parental relationship after she falsely accused him of sexually abusing their son. The children’s rights activist had previously been found with her son in Granada, southern Spain, without informing his father, but was released without charges.

“Who is going to doubt someone who has created a charity to protect children?” Mr Marcos said.

On this occasion, police broke into the house, hidden by high fences covered with tarpaulin, after monitoring the area for several weeks with no sign of the children. Neither had been registered to schools or medical facilities.

While Podemos denies that Sevilla “is or has been an adviser” to the party, she appeared on its behalf before the Spanish Congress children’s rights committee in 2017.