The mother of Austrian Natascha Kampusch, who was held in a dungeon for more than eight years before escaping, has been accused of masterminding her ordeal.

Retired judge Martin Wabl told the State Court in Graz, Austria, that Ms Kampusch’s mother Brigitte Sirny hatched the plot with Wolfgang Priklopil, the Daily Mail reported.

Priklopil held Ms Kampusch captive and committed suicide hours after she escaped in 2006.

Mr Wabl said Mrs Sirny had wanted to cover up the sexual abuse of her daughter when she was ten.

He made similar allegations after Ms Kampusch’s disappearance in 1998 but was fined for defamation, the paper said. He had now returned to court to have his criminal record erased.

Witnesses told the court Mrs Sirny had known Priklopil well with one saying she often hit her daughter.

Neighbour Anneliese Glaser, who also worked at a delicatessen owned by Mrs Sirny, said Mrs Sirny had little time for her daughter, the paper said.

“I never saw her abuse the child but she would come to me often and the red fingerprints of Sirny would be clearly visible in her face where she hit her,” she told the court.

“When Natascha resurfaced in 2006, I saw the picture of Priklopil and I recognised him instantly. He was at her shop with another man when I was there repairing the electrics.”

Ms Kampusch disappeared on her way to school in March 1998.

Shortly after her disappearance, a Vienna newspaper published photographs found in Mrs Sirny’s flat that showed Ms Kampusch wearing lipstick and riding boots, brandishing a whip and showing her private parts.

Mrs Sirny dismissed the photographs as “harmless horseplay”, although a psychiatrist described them as “highly sexually charged and taken for the sexual delectation of the person behind the camera” , the paper said.

No charges were ever brought against Mrs Sirny.

Ms Kampusch testified for 30 minutes in a closed courtroom due to the sexual nature of the evidence. She refused to answer questions from reporters outside the court, the paper said.

Judge Juergen Schweiger has said she was not sexually abused as a child. He will deliver a written verdict in a fortnight, the paper said.

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A retired shipping consultant said he lost an expensive 17th-century violin after forgetting it on a train. Rob Napier said he did not realize the instrument, made by master Venetian craftsman Matteo Goffriller in 1698, was still on the train’s luggage rack until it began pulling out of the station.

“I think you can imagine the awful, kind of pit-in-your-stomach feeling,” Napier, 67, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Monday. “My first instinct was: Can I jump on top of the train? But that was obviously stupid.”

Napier said he was on his way home to Bedwyn, some 70 miles (115 kilometers) west of London, on Jan. 29 after retrieving the violin from an expert who had valued it at about 200,000 pounds (US$390,000; euro245,000). Napier called the train company, but by the time the train reached its final destination, the instrument was gone.
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