Victim or villain

The First Post:
First, Natascha Kampusch, the 18-year-old girl held prisoner for eight years in the cellar of a suburban house in Vienna, was portrayed as the ultimate victim – a young woman deprived of her teenage years by a paedophile monster. It was a story to touch the heart - to use tabloidese - and it was swallowed without question by eager journalists and public alike.

Then, two weeks after her escape, it was reported that Natascha not only regularly left the house with her kidnapper, Wolfgang Priklopil, but had also travelled on holiday with him to a ski resort. It appeared inconceivable that this girl, such a strong character in media interviews, had not been able to escape before she did.

Overnight, she became - in the fickle public mind - villain not victim, and the hate mail is flooding in.