Kidnap victim Natascha Kampusch, who was held captive in a secret cellar for eight years, has revealed the horrific abuse she suffered at the hands of a deranged kidnapper.
It was 12 years ago when the then 10-year-old Natascha was snatched off a street in Austria by Wolfgang Priklopil, bundled into a van and locked up in a basement hidden beneath his garage.
In an autobiography to be released on Wednesday, Kampusch tells of her torment during the 3096 days she spent with Priklopil, before making her escape on August 23, 2006, aged 18.
Kampusch said Priklopil ordered her to refer to him as "My Lord" before forcing her to shave her hair off and work half-naked as a domestic slave.
Among the more graphic recollections, Kampusch said she was beaten 200 times a week and recalled being hit so hard she heard her spine snap.
"Then he'd grab me by the throat, drag me to the sink, push my head underwater and squeeze my windpipe until I almost lost consciousness," Kampush, now 22, writes in her book.
She also reveals that at aged 14 she was allowed above ground. In the evenings, Priklopil manacled himself and Kampusch together while they slept together in his bed.
"It wasn't about sex ... the man who'd beat me and locked me in the cellar had something else in mind: he simply wanted something to cuddle," she writes.
Kampusch said she regressed psychologically to the age of four or five and at times even wanted Priklopil to stay with her in the basement.
"I'd have done anything to get him to stay. Anything rather than be alone. When he backed out of the room, the walls seemed to move in on me, the ceiling seemed to cave downwards," she says.
"I'd only have to do what the kidnapper asked and everything would be all right.
"Everything would proceed as it always did: the bedtime ritual, my mother's hand on my duvet, the goodnight kiss, the quiet tiptoe out of the room."
Priklopil killed himself shortly after Kampusch escaped. He was aged 44.
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