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Paparazzi swarm around Fritzl family
* Thomas Hochwarter in Amstetten
* guardian.co.uk,
* Monday May 19 2008
* Article history
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This article was first published on guardian.co.uk on Monday May 19 2008. It was last updated at 18:22 on May 19 2008.
A security guard at the hospital where Austrian incest victim Elizabeth Fritzl and her family are being cared for has been injured after he fell from a balcony while tackling a photographer.
By the end of last week, hospital officials said that 22 photographers had been caught trying to get the world first photo of Elizabeth by getting into the Amstetten-Mauer psychiatric clinic and had been escorted from the premises.
They included one photographer disguised as a policeman, another dressed up as a cleaner and a third who had dug a hole in the ground and filled it with provisions - and then covered himself with a bird watchers hide in the hope of a grabbing a money-spinning picture.
The injured security guard, who suffered cuts and bruises, was called after a nurse spotted the photographer peering in through a window on Friday evening.
Ther Amstetten Mauer clinic chief therapist, Berthold Kepplinger, said the security guard "fell off the balcony as he tried to stop the man using his camera".
Kepplinger again appealed for the media to respect the Fritzl family's right to privacy. "This family more than any other has a right to privacy after their experience," he added.
Over the weekend, Austrian media claimed another photographer had tried to paraglide into the grounds of the Amstetten Mauer clinic and that at one point the Fritzl family had been rushed back inside when a snapper with a helicopter had been spotted hovering overhead. Local police declined to comment on the claims.
The bird tent photographer was caught by a sniffer dog, while several other snappers hiding in trees have been caught after local mountain rescue crews provided hospital security guards with thermal imaging cameras.
Austrian media also reported yesterday that a clinic worker had taken secret snaps of the family and was offering them for sale for €300,000 (£239,000).
Clinic officials have sent a letter to staff warning them that there will be legal consequences and a claim for damages that would "far exceed any profit made from the sale of such photos".
There are currently seven members of the Fritzl family staying at the Amstetten Mauer clinic, including Elisabeth, 42, her two children from the cellar Stefan, 18, and Felix, 5, and her three children that lived in the house upstairs - Alexander, 12, Monika, 14 and Lisa, 15. Elisabeth's mother Rosemarie is also in the hospital.
The Fritzl's family lawyer, Dr Christoph Herbst, said on Saturday: "The fight against the paparazzi surrounding the clinic gets harder and harder. We have had to add another four security guards.
"It is correct that there has even been a fight on the balcony on Friday evening. There was another fight earlier between security guards and a Belgian TV crew that refused to leave after coming inside [the hospital].
"In the Friday incident, a nurse saw the man and called for help. Security guards caught the man before he could take a picture."
Clearly, there are cases where I don't give a damn about free press, just throw these paparazzi in dirty Austrian cellars for some years.
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