Ohio abductions: Once again, imprisoned in plain view In most instances, neighbours fail to notice anything is wrong because the victim is so well concealed that there is not even a suspicion that she is imprisoned. Certainly nobody saw or heard Elisabeth Fritzl in the years of her confinement. But at other times the kidnapper might be inadvertently protected by the unwillingness of neighbours to voice unwarranted suspicions, in a sort of complicity of silence. Natascha Kampusch occasionally accompanied her abductor on outings, yet nobody thought to inquire as to her identity. Jaycee Dugard was heard regularly in the back yard of Phillip Garrido's house, running around, playing with her daughters, apparently camping out in tents. The reasonable assumption would have to be that they were having fun; the reality was too vicious to imagine, so no one imagined it. The fact that the girls had nothing to say was ascribed to polite behaviour and proper upbringing. So far, we know only that the occupant of the house in Cleveland, Ariel Castro, who has been arrested with his brothers Pedro Castro and O'Neal Castro, was popular with neighbours, on whose porches he used to indulge in idle gossip; he appeared unprepossessing and unthreatening. There was simply no hook upon which to hang suspicions of evil-doing, and people do prefer to think the best. As the inquiry unfolds, it will be essential to ascertain whether or not neighbours heard or saw anything of these girls in their midst. It is much more likely that the secret of their confinement was assured by strict discipline. Josef Fritzl asserted relentless control over his captive daughter, in order to make completely certain that she was in no position to contradict him or resist his rule. His word was sacrosanct, his domain inviolable. Garrido exercised his overwhelming desire for total control not only over his captive but over his wife, who was arrested with him, although she apparently was not an accomplice, only a useful fool; she was his creature, programmed by him to obey without question, to do all his bidding and never thwart him. The Cleveland inquiry will have to establish whether the three teenage girls were likewise under the thumb of Ariel Castro throughout their imprisonment in his house. The exertion of extreme discipline is not so much an indication of sadism, which might lead to damage and torture (although these already seem to be absent in this case), as it is of the assertion of personal rights and power. Such men regard their captives as their property, and their acquiescence in the fate imposed upon them as recognition of this unassailable fact. To resist authority is an insult to the captor's vanity, tantamount to a symbolic denial of his evident importance in the captive's life. It was clear that Garrido required that Dugard and her daughters should have no volition of their own. Even worse, he thought his control was beneficent, that it protected them from the evils of the corrupt modern world. He would not permit them to be exposed to education, which could warp their minds and might give rise to dangerous ideas, or to be contaminated by contemporaries who were morally suspect. In contrast, Kampusch was privately educated in her dungeon by her abductor as a kind of personal preceptor. Secrecy and incarceration were for their own good. Such bizarre thoughts sometimes arise from religious imperatives, and it will be interesting to learn whether or not the Castro brothers deemed themselves to be guided by God. It would not be the first time. There must, finally, be some investigation into the victims" level of co-operation in dealing with their terrible ordeal. According to the Stockholm Syndrome, a captive may identify with her tormentor so far as to become his apologist and defender. The idea was promulgated by criminologist Nils Bejerot after an attempted bank robbery in Sweden in 1975, when hostages held for several days by the gang bonded with them in a spectacular manner, warning them when the police arrived. There are a number of reasons why a captive may fall prey to the Stockholm Syndrome, not all of them remotely conscious. The most obvious is gratitude. When you are suddenly thrust into a position of powerlessness, your fate and your future - even your life - dependent upon another person's decisions, you are bound to feel a profound sense of relief that he has decided not to harm you, and will behave with a pretence of compliance. Then there is the sense of responsibility towards your children, who have known nothing but this cruel, blind captivity and for whom you want to provide hope. That was certainly the case with Elisabeth Fritzl and Jaycee Dugard, and it has already been disclosed that the young girl found at the house is Amanda Berry's own daughter, presumably fathered by one of the Castro brothers. In the case of Natascha Kampusch, an intelligent girl, human contact was a route to survival, even with the man who had stolen her freedom. The circumstances were lamentable, but the need for contact endures despite them. She admitted to a feeling of mourning when he killed himself upon her escape (though she has since fiercely denied that she was complicit in her own imprisonment). The Cleveland case is unique in this regard. If the Stockholm Syndrome had any influence over one of the girls, did it have a similar influence over the other two? Did they discuss with one another how to behave? How did they contrive to make some kind of normal life inside that strange house? Judging by Amanda Berry's frightened but nevertheless cogent and eloquent call to the police, she at least has emerged a whole person. We cannot yet know how this unlikely result came about.