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Boy spent years living in feces-ridden, urine-soaked prison bedroom; Dad wants him back

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The father of a 10-year-old Korean boy found malnourished after he was locked away for years in a room that reeked of urine and feces is fighting to get his son back.

But during the two years since his son was rescued from that prison bedroom he’d been kept in by his aunt and uncle, the man has only been allowed to meet with his son once, he said.

The boy, now 12, is reportedly thriving in foster care. His dad has the support of hundreds of people in the city’s Korean community who have signed a petition requesting the Children’s Aid Society of London & Middlesex return the boy to his Korean family.

CAS officials would not comment on the case.

The boy has been in care since May 2014 when police and child welfare workers rescued him from a bedroom in a southeast London home, where he’d been locked away by his aunt and uncle.

The Free Press is not naming the father to protect the boy’s identity, but learned he moved to London from Korea in April 2015 and married a member of the city’s Korean community who had been acting as an interpreter for him.

In an interview this week, the couple said the man came to London two months after his son was rescued, hoping to regain custody.

Despite his repeated requests to meet with the boy, CAS officials have only allowed them to meet with supervision once, the couple said.

“I want my son back. I think about it all the time,” said the man in Korean translated by his wife. “All of us will live together, happy.”

The next court hearing the father can attend is scheduled for September, he said.

His wife has two kids here in London and he has a 21-year-old son in Korea who has visited with his little brother five times since the rescue. The boy’s uncle is also in London. He flew in for a court hearing May 3 during which the boy’s aunt and uncle pleaded guilty to failing to provide the necessaries of life to their nephew, namely hygiene and nutrition.

“Nobody imagined he was in that situation,” the uncle said. “We all feel so guilty.”

During the interview this week, the boy’s father wiped tears from his face as he spoke of the conditions his sister had forced his child to live in.

“I can’t fully understand what my own son went through,” he said. “It would be very difficult. I don’t think I’d survive.”

Citing privacy legislation, a spokesperson for CAS London-Middlesex said officials at the agency refused to comment on the case or even provide general information. Though the boy is not a Canadian citizen, the CAS has the responsibility to provide protection to any child in Ontario.

The boy — who had been told by his aunt that his family abandoned him — is angry and doesn’t want to see his father, child welfare officials have told the man.

But one Toronto-based family lawyer said even if a child is opposed to meeting birth family, it is typically best for that child to facilitate some sort of in-person meetings.

“If the child is feeling a sense of abandonment, we better get rid of that feeling for his future health,” said Jeffrey Wilson. “If in fact, objectively speaking his dad did abandon him, there should be a reconciling of why he did that, rather than the child growing up and feeling like Hamlet or Luke Skywalker.”

Peter Chung of the Korean Canadian Society of London said many people support the man who left his life back home for London.

“We hope the boy gets to go back to the father,” Chung said. “It’s complicated. The boy’s situation is different. The boy’s daddy is very unhappy.”

His father said he sent his youngest son to Canada in 2010 after the boy’s mother died, thinking he would learn English and have a better childhood than in Korea with a widowed father who worked long hours as a builder.

During the four years that his son was here, the man said he never spoke to the boy but he sent money. He produced receipts for $100,000 that he said his parents sent to his sister to cover costs of the boy’s food and living expenses.

The dad said his mother called London to talk to the sister about how the boy was doing.

“I thought he was living well,” said the father, wiping tears from his face. “My mom told me he went to school, had friends .”

When he learned in May 2014 that his son had not been enrolled in school and was kept in a bedroom where he was left alone and fed fast food twice a day, he was “totally shocked,” he said.

“I wanted to kill my sister,” he said.

The boy was living in a bedroom that reeked of urine and feces. He’d never attended school, unlike his cousin, the couple’s daughter. After the rescue, both children were placed in foster care in separate homes.

Earlier this month, the sister, 51, and her husband, 44, pleaded guilty to charges that cover the period from Dec. 1, 2012, until the day the boy was discovered. None of the facts of the case were discussed during the brief court hearing. The reports and the sentencing are expected to be heard before Ontario Court Justice John Skowronski on July 19.

jlobrien@postmedia.com

twitter.com/obrienatlfpress

 

 

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