A couple accused of blindfolding their two young children in a forest around 1,500 from home then abandoning them have appeared in court in a bizarre appearance
A sexologist mum who allegedly ditched her children in a forest, around 1,500 miles away from home, bizarrely sang opera in court as her partner shouted “I love you”.
Marine Rousseau, 41, and her partner Marc Ballabriga, 55, have been accused of abandoning their two young children, aged three and five in a forest in Portugal. Police said they tracked down the parents at a cafe around 48 hours after the kids were allegedly ditched. An investigation was launched after the two children were found crying and alone on a rural road nearly 125 miles away from where the couple was found.
The couple, from Colmar, France, were found at the O Vasco near Lisbon, Portugal, after supposedly after blindfolding the kids in the woods for a hunting game then leaving them.
The children are believed to have allegedly been abandoned between the towns of Alcacer do Sal and Comporta on Tuesday.
Rousseau and Ballabriga, the stepdad of the two young kids, were detained on Thursday afternoon, taken to a police station in Palmela 100 miles away after their arrests and appeared in court on Friday.
The mother was overheard singing as she was escorted into Setubal courthouse, near Lisbon. Her partner repeatedly shouted in French: “Je vous aime” – English for “I love you” as he was bundled out of a police van just in front of her.
Sources reportedly said Ballabriga acted violently after being taken into police custody, shouting at officers and attempted to damage his cell while his girlfriend spent hours singing.
The mum and stepdad are facing charges of domestic violence and child abandonment and a judge is expected to decide on Saturday whether they get remanded to prison.
Rousseau and Ballabriga had already been declared fugitives by France before they were arrested on Thursday.
The father of the two boys had reported them missing on May 11 after they vanished from their home in Colmar, in northeastern France near the border with Germany.
