Kidnap victim Natascha Kampusch offers McCanns message of hope 10 years on
Kidnap victim Natascha Kampusch has urged the McCanns to "stay strong" 10 years on from Madeleine's disappearance.
Ten-year-old Natascha was abducted in 1998 by Wolfgang Přiklopil while walking to school and held prisoner in a cell in his house for eight years.
She escaped through an unlocked gate in 2006 and Přiklopil killed himself before police could arrest him.
But despite what happened to her there, Natascha, now 29, owns the house where she was held captive.
In her first UK TV interview with ITV's Good Morning Britain, she gave a tour of where she was kept for almost a decade.
Asked if she had a message for the McCann family, she said: "Please stay strong and never give up yourself, and I hope that Madeleine appears."
Speaking about her captor, she said: "I had a frosty feeling, like ice. He tried to shut my mouth with his hands and he hit me. I was never free.
"He always put his thumb on me and he had me always under control.
"I think he was a lonely person, he was like a person without friends and without any love and perspectives.”
Describing the moment she escaped, Natascha said: “I saw that option and I thought I have to do it now because it’s a chance and maybe it works.
"And after then I was so excited about my escape and my freedom and then I was a little bit shocked about the new experiences and about the new [opportunities]."
Talking about her life in the 10 years since, she said: "It was so difficult because there were so many influences from every side and it wasn’t easy to re-integrate myself.
"It was so long and I was a child and then I was an adult person with another point of view, also with another point of view as other people.”
Natascha said she tried to keep positive the horror would end, but had days when she would doubt her escape
"Sometimes it was like that, especially the years at the beginning.
"But then I had hope because I had so many plans for my life, and I didn’t want to give up these plans, and so it was so important to survive and be strong and look forward to some options and possibilities to escape."
Speaking about her fears for what her family were going through, Natascha said: "I’ll tell you a secret.
"I was at the beginning, at the very first day, so crying because of my parents - because they didn’t know what had happened to me and it was so hard."
"During the whole eight and a half years, the same emotion and I think it is and it was so, so… I had this kind of [feeling] that it’s necessary to survive and to go back to my family and go back to my normal life and my identity.”
Asked what she hopes for in the future, Natascha said: “I think I want to have a garden and a swimming pool and maybe sheep, I think. I love animals and so it would be nice.
"I want to have lots of projects - charity projects to help other people, that’s so important to me - and maybe sometime I [will] care for my own children and husband, maybe, that’s not the first thing.”