Gerrit Jan van Dorsten, 67, shared photos of himself on Facebook (Picture: Rex/ Getty/ John Eagles)

A dad accused of holding six of his children captive inside a Dutch farmhouse for nine years used Facebook to regularly post pictures of his life.

Gerrit Jan van Dorsten, 67, was arrested last week on suspicion of deprivation of liberty, harming the health of others and money laundering.

He is alleged to have forced his children, aged between 18 and 25, to stay inside the house as they awaited ‘the end of time’ in a doomsday cult.

However, it appears he still stayed connected with the outside world through social media, publishing incoherent ramblings and videos of himself regularly on Facebook.


Using the pseudonym ‘John Eagles’, he shared a clip of himself doing exercises in the garden of the farmhouse, in the remote province of Drenthe.

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He was filmed using a bizarre homemade rowing machine (Picture: John Eagles)

He was arrested last week (Picture: John Eagles)

In the post, he can be seen using a homemade rowing machine as he listens to classical music and works out.



In other posts, he discussed whether Nasa would build a farm on Mars and speculated as to what people who ‘died’ must see before they are resuscitated.

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He also shared pictures of flowers in the garden and two cats lounging out in the sun, and recommended a chess tournament happening in Zurich to his followers.

According to Dutch media, van Dorsten used to be a member of the Unification Church, a worldwide movement which originated in South Korea and is often known as the ‘Moonies’.

There, he is reported to have met Josef Brunner, who then became a groundskeeper at the farm.

The children were were not allowed to leave the house (Picture: AFP)

Jan Zon van Dorsten raised the alarm by going into a pub (Picture: Jan Zon Van Dorsten)

Brunner was also arrested last week on the same suspicions as van Dorsten.

Police are currently probing whether ‘a certain religion or philosophy’ played a role in the detention of the six children at the farmhouse.

Officers first discovered the farmhouse after the eldest of van Dorsten’s children, Jan Zon, 25, turned up at a local bar looking ‘bewildered and confused’.

The owner, Chris Westerbeek, then called the police and told Dutch broadcaster RTV Drenthe Jan had been in three times.

On his last visit, Jan ordered five beers and told Westerbeek he had not been outside for nine years.

The children had not been registered with local authorities (Picture: EPA)

Police are currently probing connections to a ‘certain religion or philosophy’ (Picture: AFP)

Janny Knol, North Netherlands deputy police chief, confirmed yesterday that the children had been banned from leaving the house

Ms Knol said it was not clear where the children were born but they had never been to school and were not registered by local authorities.

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