New development marks a turning point for the ‘family in the woods’.
The British-Australian parents of three children who were taken by authorities from their off-grid home in the woods in central Italy have accepted an offer of temporary accommodation, Italian media reported on Saturday.
The new development in the high-profile case came after the children’s father Nathan Trevallion, a 51-year-old former chef from the UK, visited the farmhouse which was offered to the family for free by a restaurateur.
The house is located in the countryside around Palmoli in Italy’s Abruzzo region, in the same general area as the family’s woodland home.
Trevallion apparently liked the property immediately and plans to move there as soon as possible with his wife, Catherine Birmingham, a 45-year-old former horse riding instructor from Australia.
The decision to accept the temporary new home is seen by the parents as a stepping stone to reuniting with their children who were taken into care on 20 November, following a ruling by the juvenile court in L’Aquila.
The eight-year-old girl and six-year-old twins were transferred to a protected facility, to be monitored by authorities, with Birmingham subsequently granted limited access to her children.
Step forward
“This is not a step backward, but a step forward that allows them to return to living according to their beliefs and their desire for freedom,” the couple’s lawyers, Marco Femminella and Danila Solinas, said in a press release on Saturday.
The lawyers said the couple decided, “in order to address the sanitary and hygiene issues they encountered, to accept a property offered by a private citizen for the time necessary to implement the requested housing improvements.”
The lawyers on Friday filed an appeal against the juvenile court order ordering the removal of the couple’s three children from their home in the wilderness, adding: “Catherine and Nathan have always had the best interests of their children at heart”.
New home
Their temporary new dwelling is composed of two large rooms, a well for water, a composting toilet, and sheds for animals, according to Italian media reports.
The property’s owner Armando Carusi, who grew up in the farmhouse, told news agency ANSA that Trevallion was “fascinated” by the little house.
The restaurateur, who lives in Ortona on the Adriatic coast, offered the newly-renovated property on free loan to allow the family to reunite and continue their lifestyle, immersed in nature.
“As a child, my family and I lived the same life that Nathan and Catherine are living now: without heating, so every room has a fireplace” – Carusi told ANSA – “I’m not shocked by the family’s lifestyle in the woods because I experienced it myself as a child.”
Background
The family had been living in a ramshackle farmhouse near Chieti, with water from a well, a wood-burning stove and an outdoor composting bathroom.
Birmingham and Trevallion, who bought the remote site in 2021, raise several farm animals and grow organic fruit and vegetables on their land, with electricity generated by solar panels.
The pair had fought a protracted legal battle to keep their children in their remote home after social services accused the couple of “parental negligence”, reporting the inadequate sanitary facilities, and claiming that the family’s off-grid lifestyle posed “serious harm” to the children’s development.
The pair have denied all accusations categorically, defending their choice to “free themselves from the toxicity of modern life” and their right to homeschool their children, living in harmony with nature.
The case has attracted massive media coverage in Italy, sparking a debate about alternative lifestyles and leading more than 153,000 people to sign an online petition demanding that the family living in the wilderness be left in peace.
Their case came to light in the autumn of last year after all five family members needed to be taken to hospital because they had been poisoned by mushrooms.
Photo Corriere della Sera
