One source close to the case claimed it could be “every bit as bad, if not worse, than the Josef Fritzl case. Especially the fact that she had so many children to her father”.


When I read about Victorian Fritzl case this morning I couldn’t help but feel a little bit cheated.

I’m not trying to take anything away from what’s happened or suggesting it’s acceptable, but the comparison between what happened in Austria and then here in Victoria is a pretty shallow one at best.

Joesef Fritzl imprisoned his daughter Elisabeth in a concealed part of his basement for 24 years. During this time he beat, raped and fathered seven children with her.

The children were all born in the basement and three remained captive with their mother spending the entirety of their lives there.

One child died of respiratory problems three days after birth and the rest lived with Josef and his wife upstairs. To explain the appearance of the children, Josef claimed they had been abandoned on his property.

Josef’s wife did not question their daughter’s disappearance nor the origin of the children that “appeared” on their doorstep over the years. It wasn’t until Elisabeth’s oldest daughter was taken to hospital for kidney failure and Josef and Elisabeth visited their daughter (aged 18) together, that suspicions were raised and the crime was uncovered.

In the Victorian case a father ‘virtually imprisoned’ (read: she wasn’t imprisoned) his daughter and raped her almost daily for thirty years.

During this time four children were born with health problems in Melbourne hospitals, all four had no father listed on their birth certificates. The wife of the man claims she knew nothing despite everybody living in the same house.

In 2005 the victim told police of what was going on but asked they do nothing because she feared for her safety. The rapes continued until 2007 but it wasn’t until 2008 that the victim approached police again. Following this the father was then charged back in February this year.

Now the fathering of incest children, the rape and wife’s apparent complete ignorance of what was going on is similar but that’s about it. Are we really going to start labelling every incest that comes along as a national Fritzl case?

Fritzl kept his daughter locked in a secure basement and kept her there for 24 years. This Victorian woman was raped across multiple properties as the family moved around, was free to come and go as she pleased and gave birth in hospitals.

Hardly the same thing.

Again I’m not trying to cheapen what happened here in Victoria but rather acknowledge the severity of the Fritzl case by not cheapening it by comparing it to every incest case that comes about. It’s a bit like comparing every murder to the holocaust.

Anyway differences between the two cases and headline sensationalism aside, apart from the details of the rape and giving birth the thing I find the most difficult to comprehend in these situations is the ‘innocence‘ of the wife.

The mother, who lives in a town in country Victoria, said her daughter had been vague whenever she asked about who the father of her children was.

“She used to say something about going out to nightclubs and meeting a fella, but then she would clam up,” the mother said.

“One day she just up and left and I haven’t seen her for years. The first I knew of all this is when they came and arrested (my husband),” the mother said.”We lived in a big house, so I wouldn’t have known,” she said. “He had a very sharp tongue. He was a drinker.”


You live in a house with your husband, your daughter and your daughter and husband’s incest children. Yet you know nothing of the abuse carried out over three decades…?

really?

I’m not for a second suggesting these wives are anywhere remotely on the same level of guilt as their raping husbands, but surely there’s some level of passive culpability here?

I mean surely you’d start asking questions when your daughter starts falling pregnant and not only have you never seen your daughter with another guy but then nobodies name is put down as the father?

And then it happens four times?

There’s an obvious clear difference between turning a blind eye and being completely ignorant as to what’s going on.

Ever since the Fritz case was brought to light it seems everytime an incest case hits the news it automatically becomes that countries Fritzl case. What Fritzl did was beyond cruel and thankfully an extremely rare occurrence.

I’m not saying there’s no chance it will ever happen again or that currently there’s nobody else on earth who could be right now stuck in similar circumstance but let’s not cheapen the horror by appearing to make it sound common.

The Victorian case was not our Fritzl and hopefully we never have one. While I feel for the victim here, the reality is it’s just a standard drunk dad rapes daughter, has kids and daughter and wife do nothing about it for decades.

I don’t know what it’s like to live in absolute fear that prohibits you from doing anything about your situation despite being free to do so and I don’t pretend to either. But let’s face it the choice is there and it’s definitely different to being behind locked doors and imprisoned in a basement.