Judge Pauline Codd said it was an unusual and bizarre case and the court was none the wiser of the man’s motives. The way the boy was treated was very frightening and upsetting, she said.
Garda Jennifer Ryan of Tramore said the boy’s mother discovered days before he was due to travel he was not going directly to the host family in Tramore but would stay the weekend in the man’s home.
She rang Pfeiffer to query this and he told her that the boy would be staying with a fictitious “Cahill family near Carrick-on-Suir”. No such family existed and the boy stayed in Pfeiffer’s house for two nights.
He slept in a restricted sleeping bag with compartments for his arms and legs. It was described as a “straitjacket” and he was zipped in and was unable to get out until released.
Over the two-day stay, Pfeiffer weighed and measured the boy and required him to do language tests and physical exercises that left him exhausted.
― a horse divided cannot stand (darraghmac), Wednesday, 29 January 2014 22:21 (eleven years ago)