Josef Fritzl today hid his face behind a blue folder as he appeared in court accused of imprisoning his daughter in a cellar for 24 years and fathering seven children by her.

The 73-year-old accused held the lever-arch file in front of his face and peered through a small hole in its spine as he was led down a corridor into the courtroom, flanked by two police officers in dark uniforms.

With television cameras allowed in for ten minutes before proceedings started, Mr Fritzl continued to hold up the file even after the judge and jury came into the high-windowed court in St Poelten in Austria.

He did not reply to questions shouted out by the 95 journalists allowed into the hearing as microphones were thrust towards his face by Austrian television reporters. Those in court craning for a view of the accused saw only the bald spot at the back of his neatly trimmed white hair, a grey suit with a fine check, a dark shirt and striped blue tie.

He spoke only to give the court his name and other personal details.

The female senior judge explained that the charges would be read out after the cameras left. Then the media and the three members of the public allowed to watch the trial would be removed from the room while the court decided how much of the hearing would be held behind closed doors.

Only after the cameras left did Mr Fritzl lay the folder on the desk in front of him.

Earlier, his lawyer, Rudolf Mayer, said that his client was nervous. "He told me, ’I’m scared, Mr Mayer,"’ he said.

Mr Mayer said he had no particular strategy for Mr Fritzl’s defence other than to say that he would plead guilty to most of the charges but dispute the murder and enslavement counts.

None of Mr Fritzl's alleged victims was present in court for the opening of the trial. They will remain in the sanctuary of a psychiatric clinic this week to escape the publicity surrounding the trial.

Mr Fritzl is accused of imprisoning his daughter, Elisabeth, for 24 years, locked in a windowless cellar, raping her on average three times a week, fathering seven children by her and allowing one of them to die. He denies murdering the baby. He is also expected to argue in court that he was in some respects a good father to the children whom he entombed in his specially constructed bunker.

Several protesters outside the court carried baby dolls smeared in fake blood.

The trial ranks as one of the most extraordinary in modern Austrian history, overshadowing even the case of Natasha Kampusch, the schoolgirl who was held for more than eight years in an underground dungeon in a dormitory suburb of Vienna.

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