Thursday 11 June 2009

Leave Elisabeth Fritzl alone

Some good news from the Daily Star however: Elisabeth Fritzl is 'cured'. Twenty years locked in a cellar being raped up to 3,000 times by her father and having seven children by him, but now she's fine:

Dungeon incest victim Elisabeth Fritzl has cured herself of her stress disorder by finding love with her bodyguard. Docs have let her quit psychiatric therapy as love has proved the best medicine of all.

The story of Ms Fritzl having a relationship was reported in lots of papers, but only the Star appears to have claimed that she was 'cured'. Probably because it's a deeply stupid word to use.

Given that the source for all versions of the story was one Austrain newspaper, it may be viewed sceptically, certainly in terms of claims she has stopped all regular psychiatry sessions. Only in March did the Guardian report that Elisabeth was:

said to be distraught and close to a breakdown after being forced this week to move out of the family's hide-away home, to which they moved earlier this year, after a British paparazzo burst into her kitchen and started taking photographs.

Now we can all wish her well in this new relationship and can only hope she manages to put her experiences behind her as best as she can. But is it necessary to reveal each new development in the media? Or for reporters from the Times to traipse around her new home village looking for clues?

When Paul Dacre was giving his evidence to the parliamentary Select Committee on privacy, he was asked about the the fact the Mail revealed the name of the village to which Elisabeth had moved to start her new life. And his response?

"I don't know the circumstances," he said, promising to investigate the matter and write to the committee with a response.

Which is clearly not good enough. He should know about such an important fact being put in his newspaper. But really, hasn't Elisabeth Fritzl been through enough without now being hounded by a media pack desperate for the latest update on her life. If she wishes to write or talk about her experiences, fine. But otherwise she and her children should be left well alone.

4 comments:

  1. Good post.
    Do you know which Austrian newspaper it was? I'd be interested to see if they also implied she'd been 'cured'.

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  2. According to the Independent version it was an online newspaper called oe24. The general tone of the Indy and other stories was that this relationship would certainly be a help to her, but only the Star said she was 'cured'.

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  3. I don't expect to be believed, but I swear the Austrian article is worse than anything I've ever read in a British tabloid. It reads like a 50p train station romance crossed with a "Days of Our Lives" voiceover. And it does say that she's "cured enough to see the world with her heart again". I almost pity the journalist who had to render that tripe into English.

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  4. "said to be distraught and close to a breakdown after being forced this week to move out of the family's hide-away home, to which they moved earlier this year, after a British paparazzo burst into her kitchen and started taking photographs"

    That is sickening. What a vile and thoughtless thing to do to that poor woman, as if she had not already been through enough in her life. I dont know what to say I'm throughly disgusted.

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