A runaway girl was horrifically abused and hidden from police in this filthy, cramped ‘hidey hole’ by Britain’s version of Josef Fritzl.

Sick paedophile Michael Dunn made a secret room behind the fridge in his Manchester home and kept his underaged victim in it. The 57-year-old was described as ‘pure evil’ by his own brother.

Dunn carried out repeated sex attacks on four victims in total – three underage girls and one woman – in a catalogue of crimes ­spanning five decades and at least five ­locations.

He sexually assaulted three young girls in Manchester, raping two of them. And he repeatedly raped a woman. She and one underage girl were kept locked up.

Later, in Redcar, North Yorkshire, he continually raped and attacked the woman and one of the girls, who was over 18 by the time she alerted police. Dunn would keep the house in the dark with the curtains shut, while his victims were imprisoned inside, a jury heard.

They would be forced to have sex “when he wanted” or they would be beaten. The case is reminiscent of Fritzl, the Austrian who kept his daughter prisoner for 24 years as a sex slave.

Dunn’s secret hidey hole in a Manchester house was behind a fridge, guarded by German shepherd dogs, and camouflaged with a bag of dust and a false wall.

Police and social services missed a string of opportunities to stop him and the Greater Manchester force said it was looking into “issues” around the case.

Two of Dunn’s four victims were treated like “possessions to do with what he wanted”, Teesside Crown Court was told.

“He kept them locked up when he wanted. He had sex when he wanted,” said Prosecutor Richard Bennett. “He was paranoid and short-tempered.” Mr Bennett added: “Michael Dunn is a violent, controlling and sexually abusive man.”

He said one of the girls had already been the victim of sexual abuse, having been raped and beaten by another man.

“The Crown say he took advantage of that situation for his own sexual ­gratification,” Mr Bennett told jurors.

He said Dunn groomed, molested and raped her as a vulnerable child in Manchester. He later imprisoned her at a home in Redcar and attacked her, punching her in the face, chest and stomach and grabbing her throat.

At one point he beat her up, breaking down a door when she tried to escape him, leaving her in a “bloodied mess”.

His young victim was driven to try to kill herself with an overdose, the jury was told. Dunn’s crimes came to light when she went to police as an adult and made a complaint in 2014.

At the same time, he imprisoned a second victim, a woman, and subjected her to repeated violence as he beat her causing black eyes, said the Crown.

She submitted to sex in fear after he ­threatened to hit her if she did not.

He had also groomed a second vulnerable underage girl, giving her alcohol and cigarettes, before sexually assaulting her decades ago. She made a complaint against him, which he denied, and he was not prosecuted as the allegation went no further at the time.

And he raped another pre-teenage girl, telling her afterwards: “It’s what boyfriends and girlfriends do.” She tried to put her experiences at the back of her mind, but challenged Dunn when she met him years later aged 21. He replied: “I’ll have you done for slander.”

One child victim alerted police in 1993 and another reported him after beatings. Officers had visited his home in Manchester looking for the runaway girl, who was in Dunn’s hidey hole, and knocked eight times.

That victim, now a grown woman, was devastated by news of the court case and told the Daily Mirror yesterday: “My whole life story is up there now in public and on the internet. They are memories I don’t want, and I’ve been having nightmares for God knows how long. I don’t want any more.”

Another victim said: “We’ve all suffered through this and it’s been over a long time. I’m glad it’s over but that’s all I want to say.”

Dunn's brother, Robert, 57, of Newcastle, said: “My brother’s a skip rat. He deserves all he gets. He’s pure evil and lost the right to call me brother decades ago.”

A court was told one relative, who did not wish to be named, said: “He was strange and an idiot, I had as little to do with him as possible. I remember him buying property and digging a hole beneath the living room floor.

“He said at the time it was a bomb shelter which seemed bizarre.”

The current owner of the hidey hole house said detectives arrived out of the blue last year and searched the property. And he said that when he moved in 20 years ago, the terraced home was covered in security cameras and lights.

He said the police took photographs of a large hole, which appeared to have been created to allow access from the outside of the house into the kitchen.

He added: “Then we heard rumours there were children coming in and out.

Dunn, of Redcar, denied 19 charges and claimed the allegations were lies.

After two days of deliberations, jurors convicted him on Wednesday of 16 charges – 10 of rape, three of indecent assault, three of false imprisonment.

He was cleared of one charge of rape, one of making a threat to kill and one of inflicting grievous bodily harm.

Cleveland Police Detective Sergeant Dave Pettrick said: “Some of the victims were kept in line through Dunn’s extreme violence or even through the fear of violence and he had complete and ­absolute control over their lives.”

Judge Tony Briggs remanded Dunn in custody for reports until sentencing.

SPECIAL REPORT: GREATER MANCHESTER'S UNSOLVED MURDERS

GMP are investigating 195 unsolved murders. The figure was revealed through a Freedom of Information request by the MEN. The ‘cold cases’ are where no one has been brought to justice for two years or more.

Advances in forensic techniques and analysis of DNA has meant hope can remain for families who have waited often decades for the killers of loved ones to be identified. The MEN has re-examined in depth several unsolved cases.. You can read the whole series here.