Kidnap victim's 'Fritzl-type hell'

In echoes of the Josef Fritzl case - the Austrian man who fathered seven children with his daughter while he imprisoned her in a cellar - Jaycee Lee Dugard has told police that she was kept in a shed at the end of her kidnapper's garden and was forced to have two children with him.

Jaycee and her two daughters were kept in complete isolation at the rear of a house in Antioch, California, where Phillip, 58, and Nancy Garrido, 54, live, police alleged.

The Garridos have been arrested and are in police custody at El Dorado county jail.

The woman and the children appeared to be in good health, but police added that "living in a backyard for 18 years had taken its toll" on Jaycee. The children have never been to school and have never been to a doctor.

Jaycee was snatched by two people in a car from a bus stop outside her home in 1991. Police said they are "99% certain" the woman who walked into Concord police station almost two decades later is Jaycee.

Phillip Garrido is being held on suspicion of kidnapping, rape by force and lewd and lascivious acts with a minor. It also emerged that Mr Garrido has previous convictions for rape and kidnap in Nevada in 1971.

Mr Garrido was called in for questioning on Wednesday following a report that he had been seen with two small children. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said diligent questioning and follow-up by Mr Garrido's parole officer had led to him revealing his part in Jaycee's kidnapping.

In a press conference, a spokesman for the El Dorado Sheriff's Department said Jaycee's two children - aged 11 and 15 - were born and brought up in the shed, which had electricity and a "rudimentary shower".

Jaycee's stepfather, the last person to see her in 1991 and a long-time suspect in the case, said he was overwhelmed to hear that she had reappeared alive and well. Carl Probyn, 60, said: "It broke my marriage up. I've gone through hell, I mean I'm a suspect up until yesterday."