Natascha Kampusch in court to hear her mother accused of 'masterminding' her eight-year dungeon ordeal

Retired judge Martin Wabl said Brigitte Sirny wanted to cover up her sexual abuse of her daughter, then ten.

He claimed she hatched the plot with Wolfgang Priklopil, who held Natascha in a dungeon for more than eight years and committed suicide hours after she escaped on 2006.

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Natascha Kampusch refused to speak to reporters as she arrived at the court in Graz, Austria

Mr Wabl made similar allegations after Natascha's disappearance in 1998 but was fined for defamation.

He has now returned to the court seeking to have his criminal record erased.

He told the State Court in Graz: "I contacted the mother early on and something never felt right about her. I have dealt with numerous disappeared and abused children but I never met a mother who gave up hope so quickly. She was quite unique."

He produced a string of witnesses who painted Mrs Sirny as a dubious character, including one who insisted she had known Priklopil well and another who said she often hit her daughter.

Natascha disappeared on her way to school in March 1998 and Mrs Sirny, who was separated from the girl's father, was initially a suspect in the police inquiry.

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Natascha's mother, Brigitte Sirny has denied any involvement in her daughter's disappearance

Shortly afterwards, a Vienna newspaper published lurid photographs of Natascha, wearing lipstick and riding boots, brandishing a whip and showing her private parts, which had been found at Mrs Sirny's flat.

Amid public outrage, Mrs Sirny dismissed the photographs as "harmless horseplay".

But an eminent psychiatrist declared them to be "highly sexually charged and taken for the sexual delectation of the person behind the camera."

No charges were ever brought against Mrs Sirny, however.

The court heard from a neighbour called Anneliese Glaser, who once worked at a delicatessen owned by Mrs Sirny and claimed she had little time for her daughter.

She said that the day before Natascha disappeared she had returned from a trip to Hungary with her father, only to find the flat empty because her mother was out with friends.

"The next day she vanished. The police asked me: 'What do you think?' And I said either something happened that night or Sirny sold her.

"I never saw her abuse the child but she would come to me often and the red fingerprints of Sirny would be clearly visible in her face where she hit her.

"When Natascha resurfaced in 2006 I saw the picture of Priklopil and I recognised him instantly. He was at her shop with another man when I was there repairing the electrics."

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Natascha testified for 30 minutes in a courtroom cleared of press and public because of the sexual nature of the evidence.

She refused to answer questions from reporters outside.

Afterwards, Judge Juergen Schweiger said she had denied being sexually abused as a child. He will deliver a written verdict in a fortnight.