Brave mother reports pimps

POLICE freed an abducted eight-year-old boy from the Alzira house where he was being held.

Three arrests were made and charges brought against the vice-ring leader who is believed to have fled to his home in Romania.

The boy had been taken from his mother a year earlier to pressure her into working as a prostitute for the gang.  She and five other women aged between 18 and 38, who have now been freed, were forced to solicit in the streets of nearby Catarroja.

The boy’s mother managed to escape and reported the kidnap to the Policia Nacional.  She was kept in hospital under observation for 24 hours owing to the physical and sexual violence she had recently suffered from the leader of the gang.

Meanwhile, the GOES special operations unit rescued the boy, who was locked in a small, shuttered room.  He was found crouching on the ground with his head on a dirty cushion, police sources said later.