No holiday reunion for Italy's 'family in the woods'

PALERMO, Sicily (CN) — As Christmas approaches, a British-Australian family at the center of Italy’s “family in the woods” saga will remain separated.

On Friday, an appellate court in Abruzzo upheld the removal of the couple’s three children from their custody — adding more fuel to a national debate over homeschooling, off-grid living and what Italy’s hard-right government denounces as yet another example of judicial overreach.

For the past month, Italy has been captivated by the story of Nathan Trevallion, a 51-year-old former chef from Bristol, and his wife Catherine Birmingham, a 45-year-old life coach and former equestrian trainer from Australia.

In 2021, the couple bought a dilapidated rural house in the woods outside Palmoli, a town in the mountainous region of Abruzzo, and started living on the property with their three children even though it had no running water, no toilet and no electricity.

Instead, they made do with solar panels, drew water from a well, slept for a while in a caravan and relied on an outdoor composting toilet. They grew their own vegetables, foraged for food and kept horses, donkeys and chickens.

But things started going terribly wrong in September 2024 when all five were hospitalized for poisoning after eating wild mushrooms.

The incident prompted social service officials and law enforcement to look into the family’s lifestyle — and most of all to question why the children were not enrolled in school or an authorized homeschooling program.

The couple was ordered to send their children to school, make improvements to their living quarters and ensure the children received regular medical care.

But by November this year, authorities in Abruzzo determined the couple had failed to comply with a juvenile court’s orders and removed the three children, sending them to a foster home in Vasto, a nearby city.

The couple argued their lifestyle was a conscious, philosophical choice focused on sustainability and freedom, not neglect. They said the children were healthy and happy.

The children’s removal made national headlines as journalists descended on their remote home in the woods and pieced together the facets of their lives.

The saga quickly sparked a polarizing debate over what Italian media came to call “the family in the woods” case.

Many Italians, including some celebrities, held them up as paragons of clean-living, off-grid romantics while others described them as irresponsible parents.

An online petition supporting the family has drawn more than 157,000 signatures. The petition calls them “goodhearted people” who have done “nothing wrong but who risk being crushed by the system.”

In an unusual twist, Italy’s hard-right government led by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni took the side of the hippy-like, off-grid family and accused Italian magistrates and authorities of attacking an innocent family over its lifestyle choice and using the powers of the state to unlawfully seize children.

Meloni and other far-right figures are locked in a bruising conflict with the judiciary, which they accuse of targeting right-wing figures and imposing “progressive” or “globalist” values on Italy, which they argue is fundamentally conservative and traditional. Meloni is seeking to pass reforms to curtail judicial powers, with critics warning the reforms will allow corruption to flourish and remove checks on state power.

Matteo Salvini, a vice prime minister and League party leader known for his toxic anti-immigrant rhetoric, has defended the couple while attacking Italian authorities for not investigating the lifestyles of Roma families.

On Friday, Salvini slammed the appellate court decision, calling the judges “shameful.”

“Children are not the property of the state,” he wrote on X. “Children should be able to live and grow up with the love of their mothers and fathers!”

Eugenia Roccella, a member of Meloni’s far-right Brothers of Italy serving as the minister for family, denounced the ruling too.

“And so, not even for Christmas will the children of the so-called ‘family in the woods’ be able to return home with mom and dad,” she wrote on Facebook.

She said separating children from their parents was psychologically damaging and should only happen “in extreme cases and in the face of life-threatening danger.”

The case for the children’s removal, though, has been bolstered by statements from a guardian assigned to the children.

Speaking to journalists, Maria Luisa Palladino, the guardian, said the children were not able to read and write in either Italian or English and that they were only beginning to learn the alphabet.

“The older girl, under dictation, can only write her name,” Palladino told Il Messaggero, a newspaper. She added that the children had begun to understand that their time at the foster home, where they do activities such as coloring and spend time with other children, was good for them.

The appellate court based its decision on assessments by Palladino and a special curator. Both experts said the children needed to remain in the Vasto home for a “longer observation period” following a four-week period when the children’s schooling and ability to socialize with other children was evaluated, the court said.

Birmingham, the children’s mother, has been living at the protective home and she is granted access to her children for parts of the day.

Meanwhile, Trevallion has begun living in a modern home a businessman from Palmoli provided the family after their story became public. He has been granted limited access to the children.

Birmingham and Trevallion hoped their new home and promises to abide by court orders would have convinced the appellate court to release their children.

The couple’s lawyers, Marco Femminella and Danila Solinas, said they felt enough had been done to get the family reunited by Christmas. The lawyers did not immediately respond to a query seeking comment Friday.

Courthouse News reporter Cain Burdeau is based in the European Union.

Follow @cainburdeau