A couple charged with kidnapping an 11-year-old girl and holding her captive for 18 years have made full confessions, a defence lawyer said.

A report by the California attorney general’s office says parole agents spoke to the woman who was held captive by a convicted rapist for 18 years and fathered his two children, but never bothered to follow it up.

Jaycee Lee Dugard, the American woman who was held hostage by a known sex offender for almost 20 years, is set to receive $20m (€16m) in compensation.

The US man charged with kidnapping and raping long-time captive Jaycee Dugard has "a serious mental illness" and "may not be competent to be a defendant", his defence lawyer said in court papers.

The man accused of kidnapping Jaycee Dugard and holding her prisoner for 18 years was not properly supervised while on parole, a report found today.

Jaycee Dugard, who spent 18 years as a captive in a sex offender's garden, released the first photos of herself as an adult - and her first statement.

The lawyer for a US woman found alive 18 years after she was kidnapped said his client initially had mixed emotions surrounding the arrest of her alleged captors but now “fully understands that some terrible things were done to her”.

US authorities ended an exhaustive weeklong search on the property where a Northern California girl was allegedly held captive for 18 years.

Police investigating two missing girl cases say cadaver dogs picked up a scent that could indicate buried remains in the backyard of the couple charged with kidnapping Jaycee Dugard.

A US sheriff’s spokesman says a bone fragment pulled from the backyard of a home where kidnapping suspect Phillip Garrido once stayed is probably human.

Kidnap victim Jaycee Dugard’s aunt said today her niece remembered her family and was getting to know her younger sister, who was just a baby when she was kidnapped 18 years ago.

Nancy Garrido watched over kidnap victim Jaycee Dugard for years while she cared for her elderly, bedridden mother-in-law at the home she shared with her husband, it emerged today.

The lawyer for the wife of accused kidnapper and rapist Phillip Garrido says his client misses the children her husband allegedly fathered with his victim, and says she saw them all as a family.

The man accused of abducting and sexually abusing Jaycee Lee Dugard testified during a previous kidnapping and rape case that he prowled through residential neighbourhoods as a peeping tom and had strong rape desires.

Police said today they had found a bone fragment on the property next door to the home of a man charged with kidnapping a little girl and hiding her in his back garden for 18 years.

Police in the Californian town where Jaycee Lee Dugard was allegedly imprisoned for 18 years by a convicted sex offender were today examining possible links to unsolved cases of murdered and missing women in the area.

Details emerged today of the ramshackle compound where Jaycee Lee Dugard was allegedly imprisoned, raped and shut off from society for almost two decades after being kidnapped aged 11.

A dossier of failures by authorities during Jaycee Lee Dugard’s 18-year ordeal at the hands of her captors continued to emerge today.

Two quick-thinking police employees at the University of California, Berkeley described how they set in motion Jaycee Lee Dugard’s release after nearly two decades of captivity when they encountered her alleged captor on campus.

A couple accused of snatching an 11-year-old child and keeping her imprisoned for 18 years pleaded not guilty to dozens of charges including kidnap, rape and false imprisonment.

A couple accused of snatching an 11-year-old child and keeping her imprisoned for 18 years today pleaded not guilty to dozens of charges including kidnap, rape and false imprisonment.

Forensic experts were tonight searching the home of Jaycee Lee Dugard kidnapper Phillip Garrido for evidence relating to the murders of several prostitutes.

Police missed an opportunity to free Jaycee Lee Dugard in 2006 when they were called to the home where she was allegedly held for 18 years but failed to find her, a spokesman said tonight.

The parents of missing Madeleine McCann said today that the reappearance of child kidnap victim Jaycee Lee Dugard 18 years after she disappeared “only makes us more determined” to find their daughter.

A woman walked into a police station 18 years after she was kidnapped, having had two children by the man who snatched her as an 11-year-old girl, police said today.

A woman believed to have been kidnapped as a child in 1991 is to be reunited with her family 18 years later.