A violent paedophile who made a "hidey hole" in his home to conceal a girl he was abusing is to be sentenced for a string of sex offences.
Michael Dunn, 57, from Redcar, knocked through the wall behind his fridge to create a cavity which he used to hide the girl - who had run away from home - from police.
Teesside Crown Court heard that Dunn, who was "paranoid, controlling and short-tempered", abused four victims over a number of decades.
He was convicted following a trial last month and remanded in custody ahead of sentence.
During the trial, Richard Bennett, prosecuting, told the jury that if any of his victims challenged the defendant "they suffered physically".
Mr Bennett said: "Michael Dunn is a violent, controlling and sexually abusive man."
The court heard he used a bag of dust and a panel to camouflage the hole where the girl was kept, concealing her eight or nine times.
Dunn imprisoned a second female victim, subjecting her to repeated violence, and filled his house with cameras, locks on the outside of doors and alarms.
He also groomed and sexually assaulted another vulnerable girl, giving her alcohol and cigarettes, as well as raping another pre-teenage girl.
He was convicted of 10 rapes, three charges of false imprisonment and three charges of indecent assault.
He was cleared of one charge of rape, one of making a threat to kill and one of grievous bodily harm.
Outside court, Detective Sergeant Dave Pettrick, of Cleveland Police, said: "This was an extremely complex and difficult inquiry which spanned many years and several locations in the UK."
Dunn will be sentenced at Teesside Magistrates' Court by Judge Tony Briggs.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here