Nigel Cawthorne.com

In the quiet Austrian town of Amstetten in the balmy spring of 2008, a trulyhorrifying vision of hell was discovered by police in the cellar of a normal suburban home. Over the next few days, in what turned out to be one of the worst cases in Austrian  criminal history, a shocking story of incarceration and sexual abuse gradually came to light, disgusting the entire civilised world and raising many questions about the depths to which human depravity can sink.

On 28 August 1984, seeming respectable family man Josef Fritzl had lured his 18-year-old daughter Elisabeth into the cellar of their family home, where he then drugged and handcuffed her in a windowless dungeon he’d spent years constructing. For the next 24 years Josef held his daughter captive in unimaginable conditions and repeatedly raped her. Seven children were born from the perverted union. Three were imprisoned with their mother, never seeing the light of day until they were released in April 2008. Three others were taken to live as the adopted or fostered children of Josef and his unwitting wife Rosemarie. One poor infant dying soon after birth, was incinerated by the monster. When the eldest child Kerstin, was admitted to hospital with multiple organ failure, Josef’s sickening web of incest and abuse was uncovered by the authorities.