Four Years of Warnings, A Basement of Hell: How Czech Authorities Failed Two Brothers
A seven-year-old boy arrived at his elementary school in early 2021, limping. The next day, he could barely walk. His teacher, noticing the injury and discovering bruises across his body, immediately called an ambulance. What doctors uncovered was a story of unimaginable horror. Both the boy and his younger brother had suffered years of abuse: bruises covered their bodies, they had cuts and torn-out hair, a broken rib, and even signs of mutilation.
According to court records, the boys’ hell began when they were just three and five years old. Their mother, who had a previous conviction, and another adult in the family subjected them to routine beatings with fists and even wounded their feet with a sharp knife. They were forced into labor and spent nights locked in a dark basement, sleeping on a sack of hay. The most shocking fact, however, is when the authorities were first warned. The social services department in Brandýs nad Labem was first alerted to suspected brutal abuse at the house in Čelákovice four years before the teacher finally intervened. For four years, nothing was done.
In 2019, the father submitted a video recording to the court and the police, in which his five-year-old son describes that he and his brother do not want to go to their mother because her friend “screams and hits” them. In the motion for a preliminary injunction, the father wrote to the court that stating his belief that “the children are being bullied and beaten”. The court and authorities were unmoved. When he tried to get the children into alternate care, experts in the fields of psychology and psychiatry assessed the mother, now convicted of abuse, as a “more suitable educational figure”. Neither the father nor the children received any financial compensation or apology from the state of the Czech Republic or the EU until today, 2025.
Even after the horrors were exposed in 2021, justice was not swift. It took another three years for even one of the abusers to be sentenced. This delay came after the boys’ father, František Š., had already spent years fighting a losing battle against the very system meant to protect his children. As reported by Seznam.cz News, his pleas to social workers, police, and courts were in vain. At one point, court-appointed “experts” in psychology even deemed the abusive mother to be the “more suitable educational figure“.
Today, František Š. continues his fight, now for accountability. “We are considering filing another complaint about the actions of the OSPOD in the Czech Republic,” he stated, noting that experts say his sons will live with the consequences of the abuse for the rest of their lives. The two social workers who handled the boys’ case no longer work for the department in Brandýs nad Labem. Neither do their former supervisors. The current department head, Jan Vaněk, refused to comment on whether he would investigate the actions of his former employees, citing a duty of confidentiality. The mayor of Brandýs, Robert Pecha, also stated his hands are tied. “I fully agree that every, even small, mistake in connection with the protection of children has impacts that are practically irreparable,” Mayor Pecha wrote in an e-mail to reporters. However, he claimed that strict confidentiality rules prevent him from commenting further.
He added that his office “can no longer perform any actions in this matter,” as the case was transferred to the children’s new place of residence in 2021. Mayor Pecha emphasized that the social services department is independent of city management. “We cannot order or demand any measures or solutions from them,” he wrote.
According to the mayor, the only body that can investigate is a superior one: the regional authority or the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs. To date, no such investigation has been announced.
A Wall of Official Silence This case documents the long-term abuse of two children and a catastrophic failure of the system meant to protect them, implicating the courts, police, and social services.
Police – Postponed – and – Forgot
The father of the boys, František Š., fought on all fronts. More than four years ago, this included filing a formal criminal complaint with the police. The case was assigned to Central Bohemian police officer Jana Zemancová. She shelved it in June 2019. In an official police document obtained by Seznam Zprávy, Officer Zemancová wrote at the time that “there has been no suspicion that the matter was a crime.” When contacted recently for comment, however, the officer could not explain how she reached that conclusion. She told the reporter that she only vaguely remembers the case of the two brutally abused boys. “I don’t think I will be able to tell you anything more about it,” she said, adding, “I don’t remember it anymore.” Later, in a text message, Officer Zemancová provided her final, official statement: she “will not comment on the case.”
when questioned today about this systemic breakdown, the official response is muted. Despite clear evidence of institutional negligence, there is no sense of urgency. Instead of answers, difficult questions are met with deflection and a wall of official silence.
The story the boys’ father told to Seznam.cz News is a deeply disturbing one.
The trouble began in 2017. The boys’ mother, Lenka K., had a new boyfriend, and her sons, then just three and five, began refusing to return home after weekends with their father, František Š. It was then that he started noticing the bruises. Suspicious and worried, he immediately alerted the social services department (OSPOD) in Brandýs nad Labem. “It never led to anything,” he says today of the agency’s response. František documented everything. He took photos of his sons’ bodies every weekend to record new bruises. He made videos to capture their distress. In over ten videos shown to reporters, the scenes are heartbreaking. The younger son, just three years old, repeatedly cries and screams, “I don’t want to go to my mother!”
In two of the recordings, the older son, then five, explains why. “Ivan keeps yelling at us and hitting us,” he says. When asked if they get to play at home, he answers no. “We have to make rubber bands,” he says. “We have to do it.” The father later explained this “work” to officials during a meeting on March 4, 2019. According to the minutes, he stated the boys were forced to help their mother with her at-home job cleaning car seals. Yet even this, video evidence of distress, a child’s testimony of being hit, and a description of forced labor, was not enough. Two years after the father first raised the alarm, authorities still officially maintained that the children were fine at home with their mother. In the minutes, the social service agency states that it is not desirable to “arbitrarily change the children’s routine given by the judgment.”