A 72-year-old mentally retarded man has been released by police after being locked in a tiny cell by his mother for more than 30 years. Ms Maria M.S., now aged 92, from the isolated Galician village of Coristanco in north-west Spain, took her decision after doctors told her that her son's condition would never improve.
The sad case came to light when social workers learned about the plight of Mr Aurelio M.S. His mother had kept him in a 4 sq m windowless cell behind her kitchen.
It had only a small hole for ventilation with a layer of straw and a blanket on the floor. "They never told me what was the matter with him. He was ill and in a hospital, but they didn't treat him well, so I decided to bring him home to look after him as best I could," his confused mother told reporters.
She said that her son was illegitimate, a disgrace 30 years ago. Her neighbours knew about the old woman and her son but preferred not to interfere. "She loved him to death, and kept him like that so he didn't harm himself or anyone else," said one of them.
They said that Aurelio once had a job in the nearby kaolin mine and seemed fairly normal until he was about 20. "Then he lost his mind," said Mrs Dolores Couto. "At first Maria used to put him in a chair near the door, but he escaped and they had to search for him in the hills." She said that sometimes Aurelio was quiet but had attacks of madness. There were three padlocks on the door of his cell when Civil Guards went there this week because, Maria told them, he had broken through other ones. "He would go crazy at new moon," Mrs Couto said. "He was naked because he didn't like wearing clothes."
Aurelio has been taken to the mental hospital in La Coruna for observation, although a doctor admitted that he was under "mechanical restraint", a euphemism for tied up.
"Do you think they will let him come home to me when he is better?" Maria asked pathetically yesterday.