Last updated at 22:06 18 June 2007

A girl of seven who had never seen sunshine has been rescued from a remote farmhouse.

The child, who was kept in a darkened room, had skin like parchment and is believed to be extremely disturbed.

She had never met anyone but her mother, who is believed to have kept her hidden away in shame because she was illegitimate.

German police said the woman also kept eight head of cattle at the farmhouse, and they were better looked after than her daughter.

One officer described the girl as "virtually feral".

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Police and welfare officials swooped after a tip-off that the 45-year-old woman was hiding a child in the farmhouse near Augsburg in Bavaria.

At least one youngster living nearby had glimpsed the child through a window and told her parents: "There is a little girl in the strange house."

The farmhouse was said to be like a rubbish tip inside, full of rotting food, paper and tins.

In a highly bureaucratic country such as Germany it is baffling how the woman managed to keep the child without her being registered somewhere.

Prosecutors are to press cruelty charges against her.

The girl's uncle lives nearby but he has not been arrested.

Local people tipped off the police after spotting the woman buying children's clothes.

Johannes Kreuzpointer, the senior public prosecutor in charge of the case, said police were trying to establish who the father of the girl is and how she was missed by the German welfare state.

"The investigation is continuing and many people are being interviewed," he said. The mother has been taken to a different town as feelings of anger grow about the treatment of her daughter among local people.

The mother was seen around the town but described variously by locals as "withdrawn, joyless, shy and strange."

Police are to have her psychologically assessed in the coming days before deciding whether she should face charges of neglect.

The theory is that the woman gave birth to the girl at home in July 1999 and never told a soul about it.

She lived on inherited property some way from people and was able to carve out a solitary existence for herself and her child.