Paedophile who hid girl in hole ‘was no Josef Fritzl’
A PAEDOPHILE who made a “hideyhole” in his home to conceal a 14-yearold girl should not be compared to Josef Fritzl because his victim did not protest, a judge has said.
Michael Dunn, 57, who was convicted of 10 counts of rape, three indecent assaults and three charges of false imprisonment, had hidden one of his teenage victims behind the fridge in his kitchen.
He had been likened to the notorious Austrian rapist Josef Fritzl, who locked his victims in a cellar, but the judge said the comparison was unfair because, unlike Fritzl, Dunn had manipulated his victims until they chose to be with him.
For the prosecution, Richard Bennett told Teesside Crown Court that the girl had run away from care and had turned up at Dunn’s home in Manchester in the early Nineties.
To hide her from the police, he placed her in the cavity behind his fridge that he made specifically for that purpose.
Mr Bennett said: “She was kept in what he called a hidey-hole in the kitchen, which was concealed on a number of occasions from police officers who would call looking for her.
“He concealed the hole using plasterboard which was covered with dust and he would keep his two German shepherd dogs in the vicinity. This was how he managed to keep this girl hidden away in the hidey-hole and away from the authorities for so long.”
Judge Tony Briggs said Dunn’s actions were “particularly repellent” because he had taken the girl under his wing after she had been raped by a family member.
He said: “She was particularly vulnerable, she had suffered serious abuse and you made a deliberate attempt to help her and thereafter there were persistent attempts to establish a sexual relationship.
“The background is particularly repellent because you knew precisely what she had gone through and you were proposing to put her through it again. You told her she knew what sex was like because she had been raped already.”
The rape of three of Dunn’s victims began when they were schoolgirls, one aged 10 or 11, and two at the age of 14. The other victim was raped and physically abused as an adult.
Another young victim was raped and went to the police as far back as 1993 when she was 14, but her account was not believed.
It meant that Dunn was able to continue raping and abusing victims for a further 21 years until 2014 when one of the victims found the courage to come forward and notify police.
Jailing Dunn for 27 years, Judge Tony Briggs told him: “You are a devious, manipulative and controlling man with a strong urge to dominate.
“You pose a significant risk to members of the public of death or serious physical or psychological injury and a high risk of serious harm to females, that is clearly supported by the evidence.
“You have a very domineering and controlling personality. What you wanted is what you got and I think it is unlikely that personality will change very much during the course of your custody. You have a volcanic temper, particularly in drink, and alcohol has been a particular problem. This is likely to reoccur and you don’t demonstrate any insight into your actions.”
In a victim impact statement, the girl – now 38 – who had been hidden in the hidey-hole, said: “At first I didn’t realise the impact his abuse was having on me as it became second nature and it was all I knew.
“My experiences [with him] have meant that I will never be able to have an established relationship again.”