Post date: Aug 26, 2011 2:4:41 PM
An 85-year-old Austrian man is being investigated for allegedly imprisoning, beating and sexually abusing his two daughters for four decades.
ST PETER AM HART, AUSTRIA (AUGUST 25, 2011) REUTERS -
Austrian police are investigating a man they suspect imprisoned, beat and sexually abused his two daughters over a 40-year period, they said on Thursday (August 25)
The 85-year-old Austrian, from a village near the northern town of Braunau, kept the women locked in a small kitchen with only a wooden bench as a bed, a police statement said.
"The case became public in the beginning of May, when the social care worker, who supported the 80- year old disabled man, found him laying naked on the floor. Investigations showed that he tried as so often to abuse his elder daughter. She pushed him away and he fell. He couldn't get up by himself and so the social worker found him and organised medical treatment for him," Braunau police chief Martin Pumberger told Reuters TV.
It was not immediately clear if they were confined all the time.
The description has echoes of the Josef Fritzl incest case which rocked Austria three years ago. Fritzl fathered seven children with his incarcerated daughter before being imprisoned for life in 2009 aged 74.
Police said the women, now aged 53 and 45, were suffering from "mental deficiencies" and were being sheltered and treated after their ordeal. "The two daughters are being advocated since their mother died. Their advocate visited them regularly and noticed that the daughters changed to the positive since the father isn't at home anymore. They were more relaxed and open than before and in talks with the advocate they mentioned that they were scared of him. They don't want him to come back and if he comes back, they don't want him to enter their rooms and they don't want to see him anymore," Pumberger explained.
The father is now bed-ridden in hospital but is "mentally active" for his age, police said. Pumberger said, neighbours didn't notice anything over the years. "To the outside there was nothing noticeable. According to neighbours nothing could be seen. The family always lived in remoteness. That the mother and the daughters never said anything is probably due to physical and emotional pressure from the father. Saying that, he rejects any of the accusations," Pumberger said.
Police did not say whether the daughters gave birth to children by their father. The police statement said he abused them from 1970 to May 2011 in the village near the German border.