27 years for ‘British Fritzl’ who kept his victim behind fridge
‘Devious and manipulative’
THE brother of ‘the British Josef Fritzl’, who was jailed for 27 years yesterday, claimed he told police about the attacks in 1992.
Michael Dunn, 57, built a secret chamber behind his fridge to hide a girl of 14 he was abusing – but he could have been stopped 22 years earlier if officers had listened, his brother Robert said.
The violent paedophile raped and molested four girls and women over 39 years, imprisoning two as sex slaves. He knocked down a wall to create what he called the ‘hidey hole’, in which the 14-yearold was bundled nine times when police came to look for her. He put plasterboard over it and trained his two Alsatians to guard it while she was inside.
Yesterday, lorry driver Robert Dunn, 56, of Chopwell, Tyne and Wear, said: ‘If I had been listened to, none of this would have happened to those girls. What he did was evil. It’s disgusting.’ He says he reported Michael to police and social services in 1992 but nothing was done.
Teesside Crown Court heard that officers missed a further opportunity to save his victims – none of whom can be identified – when they ignored another 14-year-old who told them he had assaulted her in 1993.
It meant he continued raping and abusing victims for more than two decades until 2014, when the girl he kept in the hole went to police. His home, in Mottram, Greater Manchester, was like a prison. Bedrooms were padlocked, there was CCTV outside and the women used saucepans as latrines.
Dunn was likened to Fritzl, 81, who locked his 18-year-old daughter Elisabeth in a bunker in his cellar in Amstetten, Austria, where she stayed for 24 years, being raped and having seven children.
Social services and police are investigating whether there are more victims, and the Independent Police Complaints Commission is looking at Greater Manchester Police’s handling of the case.
Dunn sobbed in the dock as he was jailed for ten rapes, three charges of false imprisonment and three of sexual assault by Judge Tony Briggs, who told him: ‘You are a devious, manipulative and controlling man with a strong urge to dominate.
‘You pose a significant risk to the public of death or serious injury – and a high risk of serious harm to females.’
He said it was ‘repellent’ that Dunn, a father of six, took the girl he hid behind the wall under his wing after she had been raped by a family member. She had sought refuge at his home after running away from local authority care.
Dunn was 19 when he raped his first victim at just ten or 11, telling her: ‘ This is what boyfriends and girlfriends do.’
He also raped a woman aged 20. She was regularly beaten and had a miscarriage after Dunn hurled a chair at her.
The girl hidden in the wall, now a mother aged 38, said the abuse made her attempt suicide, adding: ‘I was so scared of him. I will never have an established relationship.’