Police step up search for missing girl

Police have intensified their search for the sister of an 8-year-old boy who was severely abused by his mother, and are now looking for her around the whole of the Czech Republic. The girl, who is 13, is believed to have run away from a children's home in Brno on Thursday night. However, the website Novinky reported that the case is now being investigated as kidnap. There is some confusion about the girl's past, with reports that the authorities have no record of her existence.

Earlier this week the children's mother was arrested after a neighbour discovered the girl's brother, named Ondrej, was being kept naked and bound in the dark in a storage room. Klara Mauerova, who was studying to be a teacher, has been remanded in custody and could face a jail term of eight years.