The Alibi Case

Betsy, injured party, b. 1973, biological daughter of the defendant.

The district court, 1989-10-27, convicted, unanimous.

The court of appeal, 1988-12-22, convicted by the least possible majority, the votes 3-2.

The Supreme Court rejected the appeal on 1990-01-31, and also two new trail motions on 1991-03-20 and on 1991-10-09, respectively. But in relation to the second motion the judge referee proposed that the convict should be released immediately, that is to say, even before the national prosecutor had had presented his counter arguments. Such a decision by the Supreme Court would be a clear signal to the court of appeal to acquit the defendant.

In 1984, 11-year-old Betsy experienced a series of personal losses, which constituted the ground for her depressive personality. Still at the age of 15 she would burst into crying if the teacher turned to her in a friendly way and said: "How are things here" The school nurse got the idea that her depression was caused by sexual abuse. On 1988-09-09 she took the girl to the social services. This date was the first time Betsy learned about the suspicions. During the subsequent seven weeks she was exposed to constant pressure from the school nurse, the school welfare officer and a social worker who was not employed at her school. From the case-notes of the social services it is apparent that she gradually submitted to the pressure.

On 1988-11-01 she was taken to a psychiatrist. A social worker had informed the psychiatrist in advance about the reason for the visit, and she was present during the meeting. This date was the first time Betsy admitted not only to attempted abuse but to actual abuse. The court of appeal later attributed great evidential power to "the fact" that Betsy had told the psychiatrist about the abuse already during their first contact, despite "the fact" that he "knew nothing" in advance about the reason for the meeting. [As regards this evidence the doctor supplied false information during his testimony in court, and the court of appeal did not try to check his information.]

The psychiatrist testified that the girl had told the truth. He claimed that he had questioned her in such a way that he directly could check whether she told the truth. He supplied a concrete example of such questioning including inherent checking: He had asked Betsy if she had made a false report because she was jealous of her father's new girlfriend. And to this question Betsy had answered "no".

Betsy's final version was that her father had raped her 6 to 8 times. The first act of rape had occurred (a) in 1984, (b) when she was 11 years old, and (c) during the first weekend after her mother had left the family. [The true fact is that her mother left the family on 1986-02-28, that is to say three weeks after Betsy?'s 13th birthday.]

The last rape occurred in the evening. The following day Betsy went to school. When she came home afterwards she was so depressed that she tried to take her own life.

This strong temporal connection with the suicide attempt allows for an almost exact dating of the last assault. During the meeting at the social services on 1988-09-09 Betsy had neither a scar on her wrist, nor a bandage. On 1988-09-09 the school nurse changed the bandage for the first time.

One crucial piece of information is, however, that September 9 was a Friday. As a consequence Betsy's account is compatible with two and only two patterns. Either she went to school on Saturday and tried to take her life on Saturday afternoon after coming home from school. Or else she went to school on Sunday and tried to take her life on Sunday afternoon after coming home from school. And both patterns are incompatible with the obvious fact that no children went to school on Saturdays or Sundays in Sweden in 1988.

Furthermore, Betsy had moved to a foster family on September 8, where she shared a room with the daughter of the family. The reason for the move was altogether neutral, and the father had completely agreed to this arrangement. The foster family and the priest who had recently confirmed Betsy, have mapped out everything she did during this weekend. It is definitely proved that she did not meet her father at all. – In view of the close temporal connection with the suicide attempt we can rule out the hypothesis that she merely mistook the date of the last assault.

According to Betsy's testimony in courts she had described the assaults in her diary. After she moved to the foster family her father must have found and destroyed these diaries. This was what she said when questioned by the prosecutor. Thereby both Betsy and the prosecutor knew that she had left all her diaries to the prosecutor, who had carefully locked them into his safe – because it was very important to conceal their content from the defence.

The foster family swears (a) that Betsy's diaries coincided with the calendar years; (b) that when she came to the foster family she brought with her a handful of diaries; (c) that a large part of the diary for 1988 was filled with notes, but a large part was empty; (d) that Betsy wrote often and much in her diary during the months she lived with the foster family; (e) that her foster mother bought her a new diary for the calendar year 1989, which she received as a Christmas present.

In turn Betsy maintained that she after each rape had written a letter to herself about what happened. Two letters were presented as evidence, and Betsy's first story was that they were the original documents. The first one is dated 1984-04-06, and the second "May-86". The first letter starts: "When Elin was eleven years old the most terrible thing happened for the first time." In the very same letter it is stated that the second intercourse occurred a few months later. In the letter of May-86 we read: "This is the third time now he has taken me."

"Elin" is supposed to be a pseudonym used by Betsy in order to conceal [!] from the father [!] what events the letter referred to.

The date, the year and the age do not agree with the claim which Betsy had always stuck to, viz. that the first rape started directly after the mother had left the family.

When it was pointed out that the hand writing of the letters did not agree with the one found in Betsy's school books of 1984 and 1986, she changed her accounts: the letters presented to the court were copies she had written later. She had not taken the original documents with her to the foster family. Her father must have found and destroyed the original letters.

When it was pointed out that the letter version of the first rape did not at all agree with Betsy's account of the first assault at the police interrogation, she said that the letter version was an account of the second assault. When it was pointed out that the letter agreed no better with the account of the second assault recounted to the police, Betsy asserted that the Elin letter was a paraphrase in which different details were borrowed from different assaults.

Sound reasoning makes Betsy's explanations perplexing. If Betsy had described a real assault exactly the way it happened, how could the perpetrator be deceived because she had substituted her own name with a pseudonym – And isn't it surprising if Betsy, when she described the second assault, wrote that the most terrible thing happened "for the first time"

The interrogation in the district court consists of a heap of contradictions. But neither the district court nor the court of appeal noticed the contradictions. Nor did they notice the fact that the father had an unassailable alibi. The district court writes in its judgement: "She has, when she made her account, shown considerable caution and has evidently taken great pains to supply only such information that she could hold on to what she said." In the judgement of the court of appeal it is stated that Betsy "has been interrogated many times in this case, and has during these occasions delivered basically the same information. Her account bears the stamp of authentic experiences, and she has also communicated the personal impression of being truthful."

[In chapter 25 we noted psychiatrist Kåreland's claim that it is a recurrent phenomenon that real victims of sexual abuse will fabricate many more assaults than they had really experienced. More important than the psychiatrist's claim (a deliberate fabrication aimed at strengthening the prosecutor's side) is the judges' proneness to justify convictions by opposite and contradictory arguments, as if the justificatory reasons were mere pretexts.]

The Supreme Court has rejected two new trial motions that include, among other things, the above facts. According to The Supreme Court the lower courts would probably have convicted the father even if they had been aware of these facts.








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Uppdaterad: 2009-11-19

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