Mother 'kept disabled daughter captive for years'

A mentally disabled woman is believed to have been kept captive for "years" by her own mother.

German police freed the 26-year-old woman on Tuesday from an apartment where they claim her mother locked her away.

The alleged captive was only discovered by chance while police carried out an eviction order at the apartment in Rosenheim, southern Germany.

There they discovered a woman in a "physically run-down and neglected state" in a "rubbish-strewn flat".

She has now been sent to a psychiatric hospital, according to a police spokesman.

As police sought to enter the apartment, the 54-year-old tenant, believed to be the captive's mother, threw herself down the stairwell shaft from the second floor in an apparent suicide attempt, police said.

The woman suffered severe injuries from the fall and was taken to hospital.

It was only subsequently, when officers entered the apartment, that they uncovered a locked door which they broke down to discover the younger woman.

An unidentified neighbour said he had lived next door since 2003 but had never seen the 26-year-old.