Barbora Skrlova a.k.a. "Anna" probably in Copenhagen

A spokeswoman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has confirmed that a woman claiming to be Barbora Skrlova has appeared at the Czech embassy in Copenhagen. The thirty-two-year-old woman is thought to have masqueraded as a thirteen-year-old girl known as Anna, who had been taken into care along with the rest of her family in a highly publicised child-abuse case. "Anna" escaped from the children's home where she was staying a short while later. Police investigations during the subsequent nationwide search for "Anna" revealed that she was probably not in fact a 13-year-old girl but a diminutive 32-year-old woman identified as Barbora Skrlova. It is thought that Skrlova pretended to be a child in order to be adopted by Klara Mauerova, a woman who has been charged with abusing her 7-year-old son Ondrej, who was kept bound and naked in a dark room. It is believed that Ms Skrlova lived with Mauerova's family as Ondrej's stepsister for several weeks and could have crucial information relating to the abuse case.

The Ministry for Foreign Affairs said that the woman had provided the embassy in Copenhagen with a hair sample, which had been sent back to the Czech Republic for DNA tests.