Twisted doomsday dad locked kids in dog cages for 10 years as ‘world was going to end’
WARNING: DISTRESSING CONTENT Six siblings were locked away from the world for almost 10 years by their father, who claimed he was saving them from the apocalypse
Gerrit Jan van Dorsten kept his kids locked away while expecting an imminent apocalypse
For more than 10 years Gerrit Jan Van Dorsten abused his children and would even keep them locked in cages as part of his warped belief the world was coming to an end.
The six youngsters, who were all adults by the time they were finally freed, endured years of harrowing torture. They were subjected to regular beatings, denied food and one was even locked in a kennel for an entire summer.
When he was arrested in 2019 Van Dorsten explained his depraved actions by claiming his children were “unclean” and his sickening treatment would “stop evil spirits”.
It was the brave actions of one of Van Dorsten’s own children, Israel, known as Jan, that eventually freed his siblings and saw his father arrested for his crimes.
One night, in October 2019, Jan walked into a bar in a tiny village in the Netherlands and explained what had been happening inside the family’s isolated home. Staff immediately contacted police, who rushed to the property and uncovered a chilling scene.
Jan Zon van Dorsten, 25, is the son who alerted Dutch police to the plight of his four brothers and sisters(Image: Facebook)
Officers rescued Van Dorsten’s children from the house of horrors and he was changed with doling out “very serious physical punishment”.
Jan’s story in the bar that night shocked and appalled all who were there. He explained he and his siblings hadn’t been allowed to leave the property for nine years and were waiting for the apocalypse.
As the investigation progressed, it emerged Van Dorsten had kept his own children, who were all aged between 18 and 25, locked in tiny, custom-built cells in a hidden dungeon beneath the house.
During the court case that followed the harrowing discovery it also emerged one of the children, a boy, had been punished by having both his hands and his feet tied.
Another was held captive in a dog house for an entire summer, the court was told, and forced to live away from the rest of his family in a caravan.
Gerrit Jan van Dorsten aka John Eagles kept his children prisoner for years in Holland
A 61-year-old Austrian handyman, who was described as a ‘disciple’ of Van Dorsten, was jailed for helping to isolate the children.
Dutch privacy rules meant he could only be identified as Joseph B, but the court heard he would bring the family food and shopping and that without his help the horrifying abuse and isolation would have ended much sooner.
However the court, help in the Dutch city of Assen, found Joseph B not guilty of detaining three older children and abusing any of van Dorsten’s children.
After suffering a stroke van Dorsten himself was deemed too ill for trial.
However, the sick dad was charged with depriving the kids of their liberty from 2007 to 2019, as well as alleged sexual abuse of two of his older three children.
Prosecutors said 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 attended school, the children were not registered with Dutch authorities and had been isolated for so long they had lost the ability to talk properly and spoke a bizarre “fantasy language” to shocked cops, the lawyers said.
