3 dead, 12 wounded in Belgian day care stabbings

35 minutes ago

By Slobodan Lekic, The Associated Press

DENDERMONDE, Belgium - A man went on a rampage at a Belgian daycare centre Friday, stabbing two young children and a female worker to death and slashing and severely injuring 12 other people, 10 of them children.

Sobbing parents rushed to the scene and to nearby hospitals. Shocked rescue workers spoke of finding crying, bleeding toddlers scattered inside the daycare.

Medical workers at six hospitals sprung into action, performing emergency operations to save the 10 children and two adults badly wounded in the attack.

The shocking assault caused panic and outrage in the town 30 kilometres northwest of Brussels, where the daycare centre sits on a residential street.

"An act of great brutality has happened here against our weakest citizens," said Mayor Buyse Piet. "The whole city is united in support for the parents who are in deep grief."

Prosecutor Christian Du Four said the attacker rode his bike up to the Fabeltjesland centre about 10 a.m., entered and immediately began slashing those inside with knife. The dead included two children - the oldest being a three-year-old - and a woman working in the centre.

After the mayhem, the attacker walked out of the daycare and got back on his bicycle before being arrested in a nearby supermarket shortly afterward, Du Four said.

Dr. Ignace Demeyer, head of emergency services at the Our Lady Hospital in nearby Aalst, said the 10 wounded children and two daycare workers underwent surgery at six hospitals. All were in stable condition Friday night.

"This was a particularly violent attack. All the kids had multiple stab wounds on their legs, arms and all over their bodies," he told a news conference.

He said 21 children were at the centre during the attack, and nine were unharmed.

Police had to show distraught parents digital photographs of those taken to the hospital, asking them to identify their children.

Du Four did not immediately identify the suspect, who was injured as police detained him and briefly taken to a hospital.

Justice Minister Stefaan De Clercq said later the man was unco-operative under questioning. He did not elaborate.

Residents told The Associated Press the suspect was a local man with a history of mental illness.

Officials opened up a nearby community centre to provide psychological counselling to family members and witnesses, and police cordoned off the area.

"People are totally in shock," said Leene Du Bois, a spokeswoman for the regional government of Flanders. "Nobody would have imagined anyone could do so much harm. There is much grief."

She said the suspect had no connection to the daycare centre.

Officilas said Crown Prince Philippe and his wife, Princess Mathilde, planned to meet with the parents of the children.

Veerle Heeren, social welfare minister for the regional Flemish government, said she would be investigating security measures at the centre.

"(It's) something you hear about from America, not here," said bake shop owner Bie Hoornaert.

Irish woman jailed for incest, abuse of children

Thu Jan 22, 1:38 PM

By Andras Gergely

DUBLIN (Reuters) - An Irish woman who forced a teenage son to have sex with her and abused and starved her other five children for years in a rat-infested bungalow was jailed for seven years on Thursday.

The teenager was forced to have sex with his mother, now aged 40, on four occasions over a six-year period, the Irish Independent newspaper said.

The woman from central Ireland admitted to police her children -- now aged between 10 and 19 -- were often blue with cold, had dinner only twice a week and had lice crawling over their bodies.

"It was a house of horrors with bells on," the mother, who was not named in order to protect the identity of the children, was quoted as saying by several Irish newspapers.

"I can safely say that I was the worst mother in the world and I'd turn back the clock if I could, but I can't," she said.

The woman was given 7 years and concurrent sentences of 6 years on counts of carnal knowledge, incest and willful neglect, Ireland's Courts Service said in a statement.

"I wish to express my absolute shock and abhorrence at the circumstances surrounding the case," Minister for Children Barry Andrews said in a statement.

He said a preliminary investigation into social services' handling of the case was under way and on the basis of that he would decide on further action.

Judge Miriam Reynolds said she would have given the woman a life sentence had she been a man, but the maximum sentence for women in such cases was seven years, the Irish Times newspaper reported on its website.

The woman is believed to be the first female convicted of incest in Ireland.

Austria shocked the world last year with what media dubbed the "house of horrors" case of Josef Fritzl, who imprisoned his daughter in a cellar for 24 years and fathered seven children by her. Fritzl will go on trial on March 16 on charges including the murder of one of their children.

The Irish woman from the central county of Roscommon admitted a total of 10 charges including incest, sexual abuse, neglect and ill-treatment.

The teenage son who was forced to have sex with her was quoted as saying by the Irish Independent: "I was crying. She was my mother. Why did she do that to me?."

The children, who were moved to foster care in 2004, told healthcare workers their mother regularly left them on their own before coming home drunk around 3-4 a.m. and arguing incoherently with them.

A police investigation began in 2005 after the eldest child revealed details of the abuse to Health Board staff.

One daughter said nits used to crawl down her face and their mother forbade her and her sister from tying up their hair because they would become too obvious, the Independent said.

"Mammy didn't take care of us right," one child said.

(Editing by Richard Balmforth)