LONDON, Nov 26: British Prime Minister Gordon Brown voiced anger on Wednesday over how authorities failed to spot a harrowing trail of incest which has been likened to the case of the Austrian cellar rapist Josef Fritzl.

Brown said the country was ‘utterly appalled’ by the case of a 56-year-old man who raped his two daughters and fathered nine children but went undetected.

The case has focused the spotlight on the failings of social services, coming days after another scandal over a baby who died following months of horrific abuse.

Police and social services in South Yorkshire and Lincolnshire in northern England launched an investigation into the incest case after the British man was jailed for life on Tuesday for making his daughters pregnant 19 times in almost 25 years.

The trail of incest has chilling echoes with the case of Fritzl, who imprisoned his daughter underground for 24 years and fathered her seven children.

The judge who sentenced the man said it was the worst case he had dealt with in 40 years. The man evaded detection by regularly re-locating his family to isolated villages to prevent the girls remaining in one place long enough to raise suspicions or form friendships with outsiders.—AFP