Paedophile who hid girl in hole jailed for 27 years
AVIOLENT paedophile who made a “hidey hole” in his home to conceal a girl he was abusing has been jailed for 27 years for a string of serious sex offences.
Michael Dunn, 57, from Redcar, knocked through the wall behind his fridge to create a cavity which he used to hide the girl – who had run away from home – from the police.
He preyed on four victims, raping one aged just 10 or 11, over a period of decades, Teesside Crown Court heard.
Judge Tony Briggs said: “The history reveals you to be a devious, manipulative and controlling man with a strong urge to dominate.”
Dunn wept in the dock during the sentencing, which followed his conviction for 10 rapes, three charges of false imprisonment and three charges of indecent assault after a trial in January.
Jurors were told that Dunn used a bag of dust and a panel to camouflage the hole where the girl was kept, concealing her from the police on eight or nine occasions.
Judge Briggs said previous reporting was wrong to liken the case to that of Josef Fritzl, the Austrian who kept family members captive, as Dunn’s runaway victim wanted to be hidden from the authorities.
Richard Bennett, prosecuting, said Dunn knew the girl had already been sexually abused by a relative when he raped her, cynically telling her that she had had sex “before so she knew how it felt”.
“Paranoid” Dunn imprisoned and raped a second female victim, subjecting her to repeated violence, and filled his house with cameras, locks on the outside of doors and alarms.
He also groomed and sexually assaulted another vulnerable teenager in the 1990s, giving her alcohol and cigarettes.
Judge Briggs told Dunn, a father-of-six, he had a “volcanic temper, particularly when you are in drink”, adding it was “repellent” that Dunn would pick on a girl who had already been abused.