Never a nation to be content with conventional solutions to a problem, Dutch local authorities have placed a 'family from hell' in isolation on their own mini-housing estate so that they are unable to cause any more grief for their long-suffering neighbours. The family of five households are notorious for stealing, violence and causing nuisance to anyone in their neighbourhood.

At a cost of around £1.5 million, Maastricht local council is rehousing the family in four houses of their own, on an isolated estate of ten houses on the edge of the city. The other houses will be left empty, while their existing homes will be knocked down.

The head of the family - an ex-con who has spent 18 years in prison - spoke for all the family, who have taken exception to the location of their new homes, which are situation next to a prison.

Peer Krijnen, 56, said: "You can't force criminals to live near a prison in the few times they are free. We want a decent house in a nice neighbourhood. And we are going to get it, even if we have to go to the European court in Straasburg."

Jan Meissen, spokesman for the council says the family cannot be housed in a normal neighbourhood:"They steal the tiles from the roofs of other houses; instead of growing tomatoes they grow hashish in the garden, they just do whatever they like, when they like and nobody can stop them. They just have to move."