A couple went on trial on Thursday accused of locking their 10-year-old foster daughter in an electrified cage and throwing her downstairs, in a harrowing case that has shocked the Netherlands.

The girl was taken to hospital in May, unconscious, in a filthy state, with several broken bones and badly malnourished, reportedly weighing just 22 kilogrammes.

She emerged from her coma in July but is unable to sit up independently or communicate, prosecutors said as the trial opened in Rotterdam.

They said she would probably need intensive medical care for the rest of her life.

The couple, named only as Daisy and John, both 37, stands charged with attempted manslaughter for throwing or pushing her down the stairs, among other charges.

They held their foster daughter captive in the house and abused her for months, prosecutors alleged.

“They locked her in her room, handcuffed her arms and legs and covered her mouth with tape. They placed her in a homemade cage with electrical wires attached to it,” the public prosecutor told the court.

Neither suspect was present in court to hear the accusations.

A lawyer for the couple said they denied pushing her down the stairs, arguing that she jumped down the stairs herself.

The case of the “Foster Girl From Vlaardingen”, the harbour town just outside Rotterdam where she lived, has been headline news in the Netherlands, with questions over how authorities could have missed the alleged abuse.

Dutch media said the girl had reported the alleged abuse several times.

She was forcibly removed from her biological parents after suffering abuse at their hands.