Authorities in France have made the heartbreaking discovery that a nine-year-old boy has lived in solitude for the last two years, after being abandoned by his mother.
The youngster suffered periods of not having any hot water, heating or electricity in his Nersac flat.
He was forced to sleep in sleeping bags in order to keep warm, wrapping himself in hoards and hoards of blankets each night.
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The neglected boy - from the southwestern village on the outskirts of Angouleme - also turned to crime in order to feed himself, regularly stealing freshly-grown fruit and vegetables from neighbouring balconies to survive.
Despite this, he continued to attend school everyday and never looked unkempt, meaning neither friends nor teachers suspected the realities of what was going on at home.
Barbara Courtutier later told French press that the unnamed youngster was a 'good student', adding, "I think it was also a kind of protection that he put around himself to say 'everything is fine'."
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A classmate of his also said during a television interview: "He told his mates that he ate his meals alone and took the bus alone. He didn't go out and stayed home all the time."
It was his neighbours that eventually reported the child's thievery to police who, upon investigating the property, discovered he'd been deserted for some time.
These surrounding locals later told press of their guilt at not having suspected anything out of the ordinary in the child's situation.
"When there was a family and a village around the family, if the mother neglected the child, it didn't matter too much, because the rest of the family and the whole village took care of the child," they explained. "It's not like that any more."
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The boy was then taken into care, where he revealed that, between the 2020 and 2022, he lived totally alone.
It was only after the lad was questioned about his mother's whereabouts that he revealed she'd run off to live with her boyfriend, three miles away.
Upon being arrested and questioned, the mum, 39, insisted that she had, in fact, lived with her son.
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But her mobile phone data - analysed by investigating offers - indicated that the mother had barely dropped by the flat in the two years since moving out.
She was subsequently sentenced to a six month term for abandoning and endangering a minor to be served at her home using an electronic tag.
Rhianna Benson