Cell horror father 'had power complex'

The Austrian man who imprisoned his daughter for 24 years and fathered seven children with her suffered from a “power complex” and possibly other disorders, experts said today.

Psychiatrist Reinhard Haller said he believed Josef Fritzl was driven by pronounced narcissism and a need to exercise power over others.

Police said 73-year-old Fritzl confessed yesterday to holding his daughter Elisabeth – now 42 – in a windowless cell beneath the family’s apartment in the town of Amstetten, west of Vienna.

Elisabeth, the children and Fritzl’s wife Rosemarie are all receiving counselling at an undisclosed location.

Court psychiatrist Sigrun Rossmanith said Fritzl essentially had two personalities – “the underground one, and the one that existed above”.