It’s good news at last for the little boy whose faked kidnapping last winter gripped the nation.
Two-year-old Daniel Abreu has been officially put into the custody of his father, along with his slightly older sister Mariana.
The threesome will now be moving to an apartment ceded by the Madeiran government – a huge step up from the leaky shack that the family lived in when Daniel’s mother was plotting to sell him.
The case that sent shockwaves through the country has thus reached a closure of sorts.
Daniel’s mother Lídia still faces charges of simulating kidnap, but she has been released from police custody and is now even allowed visits from her children.
Meantime, according to press reports, the investigation into who helped Lídia during the three days her little boy was ‘missing’ – and to whom she was proposing to sell him – continues.
According to Correio da Manhã if the case is eventually archived, Lídia could end up fighting for custody of her two children – though the duo’s unemployed father Carlos said he will challenge that all the way.
“I will never let her keep them,” he told CM after the Tribunal of Ponta do Sol awarded him custody of both children – ‘under the vigilance of Social Services’ – last week.
