The Incest Monster

How a defendant accused of serious crimes is treated at court reflects the basic moral principles of a society. There are two important aspects of the trial of Josef Fritzl in Austria – its transparency and its fairness. Both of these principles are tested to the limit.

The reporters in the Fritzl trial can only stay for part of the proceedings. The court provides edited extracts from the case at the end of each day. As a result, the public cannot find out exactly what happened in that dark dungeon, except as disclosed by the court. There appear to be two reasons for restricting the journalistic reporting from the court. Firstly, his grandchildren have to be protected from public intrusion. Secondly, the court did not want the trial to turn into an exercise in voyeurism. Whilst these concerns are understandable, there are other solutions which do less damage to justice. The children involved have already been given new identities. It is not the trial alone which brought them publicity. The fear about voyeurism is misplaced – the issues raised by the case are of wider public concern both nationally and internationally. The press reporting is not so much salacious as horrified.

The story of incestuous family incarceration is so shocking that any civilised society needs to ensure that it cannot happen again. The trial is of only one man, but the public will be concerned about the role that the authorities may have played. The perception is that Austrian society still has too many institutions that cannot be questioned. What were social services doing? Surely it was implausible that so many babies could appear from a daughter who has run away? Maybe the authorities do have something to hide. The best way of counteracting this perception is to bring all the facts into the open. Furthermore, the public needs to understand how a determined and devious character like this can develop. It is essential to get the full story from the protagonists – the defendant and the victim (“victim” rather than “alleged victim” because Fritzl has pleaded guilty to most counts). There is no substitute for their own words.

Fritzl is termed the “Incest Monster” by the Austrian press. Whether this description prejudices the outcome is unlikely since the judge will have seen the material beforehand in a less emotional setting. It is perhaps easier for a professional judge to deal with this media claims than it is for lay members of a jury. Meanwhile, throughout this process, the defence attorney has complained that he has been vilified for representing Fritzl and threats have been made to his life. His public appeal to treat Fritzl as a man and not as a monster has fallen on deaf ears. Fritzl is a man who acted as a conventional father for his upstairs family whilst treating his dungeon family despicably. He has not tried to evade conviction by claiming mental illness. The hardest thing to accept is that Fritzl is a man not a monster, albeit a man of moral contradictions.